As a Natural Mama, I want all our food to be as 100% natural as possible, especially packaged food for on-the-go snacking. Like homemade food that’s conveniently packaged and available in the market. NO preservatives and additives at all. I know how impossible that sounds, but such precious kind of snack exists! And that’s LÄRABAR, the Original Fruit & Nut Bar.
I’m so lucky to have found Larabars in all its glory, complete with all its flavors! And aside from their fruit & nut bars, they also have indulgent dairy-free peanut butter and chocolate bars. Some fruity flavors I got are Apple, Lemon, Blueberry, and Coconut Cream. While the nutty and indulgent ones are Cashew, Chocolate Brownie, Chocolate Chip, Cocoa Coconut Chew, Peanut Butter, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip! Some of the common ingredients in these bars are dates, cashews, almonds, and walnuts.
We have all these flavors for my family to enjoy, and we all have our own favorites. I love all the chocolate flavors especially the Chocolate Brownie and Chocolate Coconut Chew. Both flavors have cocoa powder in their ingredients and it must be the extra nuttiness that made me fall in love. And for the fruity flavors, the tangy Lemon and Blueberry bars were so refreshingly good. Every bar is kicking with lots of flavor.
I’m not surprised that the chocolate and peanut butter flavors weren’t the ones my kids loved the most because it tasted ‘adult’ to them and not really the kind of semi-sweet dark chocolate we’ve been accustomed to. They did like them though, it’s just that I loved them more! But they loved the fruity flavors most, especially the blueberry, lemon and coconut cream. And I’m very happy about that because they got to love the pure, natural taste of all the ingredients, and absorbed their pure nutrients too!
I say LÄRABAR is packaged homemade food because their products only contain fruits and nuts, and no added sugar or anything that’s neither fruit nor nut (except for peanut butter and chocolate bars). These fruits and nuts were just ground together, not roasted or baked in any way. Just whole, natural, untouched goodness. Untouched, except for the natural way of grinding them together so they could form a single bar mix. And the result? Just the natural and wholesome taste of all these whole ingredients!
In all honesty, I could make my own fruit and nut bars at home with just a single food processor. But how could I resist the variety of Larabar flavors? I couldn’t also source all the ingredients I need all the time, so Larabar has conveniently done that for me.
And if you’re wondering how such a minimally processed, unpreserved kind of food lasts, Larabar normally have a 9-month shelf life (with indicated dates of course). It’s the packaging that helps preserve the bars, not the (absence of) preservatives.
LÄRABAR is certified gluten-free, non-GMO, Kosher, Fair Trade, vegan, dairy-free, soy-free, additive-free, and whatever guilt-free goodness you can think of to make you eat more bars. Yum!
We love Lara Bars but I find them expensive so I make my own. A recipe I’m really enjoying lately for fall is this one: http://www.edsmith.com/en/recipes/bake-pumpkin-spice-superfood-bars/#.V-M8BjtlnBI