Home » Outdoor & Recreation » Mountain Biking » Review of "MET-Rx Nutritional food bars"

Review of "MET-Rx Nutritional food bars"

© Joseph Pucci

You are what you eat, or maybe that should be, you perform like what you eat. I recall a Saturday morning ride from a couple of years ago that bring that line to life. The night before, I worked late at the office and ended up skipping dinner. Needless to say, Saturday morning I was really hungry. I downed a big bowl of oatmeal, put the bike in the car and drove to the trail to meet up with some friends. As I was driving to the trail I started to feel a little sluggish. By the time I got to the trail, I felt like taking a nap in the car. I figured that once I started riding, I would feel fine. Well, that whole day, I felt like I was the bowl of cold oatmeal. Not a good feel, I should have stayed in the car.

That was a mistake I only made once. Most riders make some form of this nutritional mistake, either by eating too heavy, too lit, or poorly. For many years I avoided eating anything before a ride, and very little during the ride. I just didn't like the feeling of food in my stomach and I rationalized that it didn't make a performance difference. I was so very wrong. I didn't realize the reason I was running out of steam a third of the way in to the ride, was that there was no fire in the belly!

Since then the question has change from, "should I eat on the trail", to "what should I eat while on the trail". I've tried fruit, like bananas, and berry's but neither seem to handle mountain biking very well. The banana always seems to get soft and hot or really bruised. Berry's often became juice.

So I turn to the nutritional bars. I tried Powerbars, for a bit. The flavors were okay, but not great. The texture was that of leather and without any water you are surely going to choke. Without a lot of water the bar just sat in your stomach like a rock. I next tried the Harvest Bars by Powerbar which were certainly a step up in the flavor and texture departments. The Harvest Bars were a bit on the dry side. Of later, I have moved on to MET-Rx Nutritional food bars. MET-Rx offers two basic types of nutrition food bars and variety of flavors. The larger of the two types is simply labeled MET-Rx Food Bar 3.5 oz, with an average calorie count of 340. They come in the following flavors, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Peanut Butter Cookie Dough, Fudge Brownie, Extreme Vanilla, Chocolate Graham Cracker, and Java Chip. The flavors and texture is pretty good, not to dry and pleasant going down. The sound of the two bars from MET-Rx is the "SOURCE|ONE" bar. This bar is smaller, weighing in at 2.2 oz, with a calorie count of 190. The flavors are, Chocolate Roasted Peanut, Devil's Food Cake, Chocolate Banana Split, PB & J Sandwich, Mocha Latte Swirl and Chocolate. The flavors are probable the best of the lot discussed above. The flavor is so good, it tempting to eat them as snacks with milk. The only one I didn't like was the Mocha Latte Swirl.

The copyright of the article Review of "MET-Rx Nutritional food bars" in Mountain Biking is owned by . Permission to republish Review of "MET-Rx Nutritional food bars" in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.