I Spent Years Telling People Not to Eat Protein Bars, Then We Made One at Unmatched.
If you have followed me for any length of time, you will know that I have never been somebody who believes a food automatically becomes healthy because somebody writes the word protein on the front of it.
The mainstream has now fully embraced the value of high protein diets but it’s become incredibly gimmicky, today we have protein cereals, condiments and of course, protein bars which may fool the average consumer but I see straight through the BS. So do Unmatched customers!
I have spent most of my adult life bodybuilding and I have built my nutrition around consuming enough high-quality protein to recover, build and retain muscle. As I have got older, I probably value maintaining muscle even more because I understand what it means for strength, metabolic health, resilience and longevity.
However, the quality of protein you consume, along with the other ingredients, truly matters.
The world has gotten so far away from nature that people have almost forgotten what real food is, and why it’s essential.
When we decided to enter the protein bar category with Unmatched, we wanted to bring it back to nature while ensuring it was seriously focused on performance and longevity.
Full disclosure; I told the team if we could not make this bar meet my exacting standards we would not do it and for full transparency, I needed to be convinced - I will share more on the R+D journey further down this blog.
My Problem With Protein Bars Started Over 20 Years Ago
I mentioned this recently, but there is a story behind my opinion on bars.
26 years ago, when I was living in Australia, I travelled over to America for the Arnold Classic and the Olympia bodybuilding events.
Back then, bodybuilding expos were absolutely loaded with samples.
Supplements everywhere, protein powders everywhere and of course, protein bars everywhere too!
Given that I was focused on cramming in a lot of protein every day and wanted convenience, I stocked up on the protein bars and consumed them.
Guess what happened? My digestive system absolutely hated me for it, I felt like s*** for days! I hardly slept that night and the flight home was pretty abysmal….for myself and the passengers.
Back then I had far less knowledge on intricate details pertaining to ingredients used in the supplement industry and how that impacted the body.
Today, that is very different because I am very educated on this topic which is why the entire Unmatched brand has been built upon complete transparency and efficacy, and none of the crap I experienced.
Your Body Gives You Feedback
Unfortunately, the industry is still producing really unhealthy bars! The biggest protein bar brands you see trending right now are still using those artificial ingredients and even more chemicals I would not put anywhere near my body as somebody who is focused on optimal performance and longevity.
One thing I encourage people to do is pay attention to how food actually makes them feel rather than analyse whether something fits into your daily macros.
Eat a normal protein bar then assess yourself 30 minutes later.
How does your stomach feel? Energy? Mental clarity?
Your body and brain gives you feedback all day long and most people just stop listening to it or normalise symptoms which simply are not to be ignored, especially when longevity becomes a key focus.
When you start looking closely at many conventional protein bars, it isn't difficult to understand why they can create problems.
You’ll commonly see maltitol, maltitol syrup, sorbitol and polydextrose used to create sweetness or fiber with fewer conventional sugars, yet these ingredients can also contribute to bloating, cramping and digestive distress.
Then there are artificial sweeteners such as sucralose and acesulfame potassium, alongside heavily processed ingredients like soy protein isolate, refined sunflower oil, canola oil, palm oil and palm-kernel oil.
Some bars go even further with cleaning chemicals.
Then there is another level:
You’ll see highly engineered ingredients like EPG modified plant fat, synthetic antioxidants such as TBHQ, colouring agents like titanium dioxide, and rapidly digested carbohydrates such as maltodextrin.
Even ingredients that sound inherently healthy aren't always what they seem. Alkalized or Dutch-process cocoa, for example, can lose some of the naturally occurring flavanols during processing.
And then there is the obvious one: sugar.
Corn syrup, glucose syrup, invert sugar, cane sugar, brown-rice syrup and fructose can all show up in products marketed primarily around protein.
That is my issue with this category; why does something supposedly designed to support your health need to be engineered this heavily in the first place?
I don't want my nutrition designed around manipulating a label.
I want quality protein, recognisable ingredients, good digestion and food that actually contributes to the way I want to perform and age.
Unfortunately, the current standard means you end up with something that has been engineered within an inch of its life to make the macros look impressive.
Twenty grams of protein.
Low sugar.
High fiber.
Maybe 200 calories.
The headlines appear great but what exactly did you have to put into the product to achieve that?
That has always been my issue and as I said, when you consume one the feedback your gut provides will confirm it’s not quite as healthy as the brand will have you believe.
I have called many protein bars tarted-up candy bars, and I stand by it.
Frankly, you may as well eat a f***ing chocolate bar and enjoy it, and sip on Unmatched Grass Fed Whey Protein Isolate alongside it to get your protein over most of these “protein bars.”
Some have basically taken confectionery, manipulated the ingredients enough to improve the nutritional panel and then allowed the word protein to give the product a health halo.
The problem is, I know better and I also know Unmatched customers are smart enough to make these key distinctions too.
Macros + Quality Both Matter; I Wanted Both in a Protein Bar
Two diets can contain identical calories, protein, carbs and fats and have radically different nutritional quality. Those who are only focused on body composition may not care, but if you want optimal performance, optimal health and bulletproof longevity, you absolutely need to care!
You could technically "hit your macros" eating highly processed foods every day but your gut, inflammatory markers, cholesterol, cognition, immune health and other areas of health will not thank you for that.
After 40, or like me, after 50, this becomes even more important.
When the conversation started about Unmatched developing a protein bar, the amount of experts in the industry who told us we would have to settle for the industry standard was insane. Time and time again we were told to just lower our expectations if we wanted the flavor, shelf stability and macros.
I certainly wasn't going to spend years telling people most bars were crap and then put my own name behind one that followed exactly the same template because that would make me a hypocrite.
So the bar had to solve the very problems I had been complaining about or we wouldn't launch one, it was that simple.
Taste Matters!
Obviously, taste is also a key consideration because being all natural couldn’t mean it tasted like s***. Unfortunately, I knew this would make the bar become unpopular no matter how healthy it was.
During the testing phase we went through many iterations, many of which to be honest, were not on point.
The texture wasn’t quite right, they would go dry and the taste was a little off, so we kept iterating on it.
Finally, 16 months later and thousands of dollars and hours later, we got there.
It was official; we had a protein bar that met the Unmatched standards and we called it the Longevity Bar (I will explain why later).
The iteration of the Longevity Bar we are launching has travelled with me all over the world and truly stood every test I could throw at it.
Many of my closest friends in the industry, people I trust, have also tested it for me on their travels and on their adventures. One of my fondest memories from a recent hike up the Sawtooth Mountain Range was actually getting out my Longevity Bars, for myself and Sibylle, as we sat there taking in the view.
It tasted amazing, and we both knew there was zero compromise with the quality of ingredients we were consuming.
I have since taken it with me in my gym bag, mountainbilling, swimming, and on many flights.
That is what a fully functional protein bar should deliver.
Even my little nieces and nephew love the taste and believe me, they don’t sugarcoat things when they aren’t happy!
Only this morning my Dad said he ate half a bar while reading a book in bed last night. This makes me really happy.
The two flavours we're launching with are Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup and Apple Cinnamon Danish; you’re going to have to decide for yourself which is best because Dave Rynecki, our head of R+D has done an unbelievable job on both. Apple is my favorite, PB is Sibylles, but I love them both.
The Protein Couldn't Be an Afterthought
Obviously, if I'm eating something called a protein bar, I expect it to provide a meaningful amount of quality protein; the Longevity Bar provides 20 grams of protein.
That number is significant because that’s the range in which muscle protein synthesis is stimulated, therefore we couldn’t afford for it to have less. It also makes a meaningful contribution to your daily protein target!
We use a combination of milk protein isolate, hydrolyzed bovine collagen and pumpkin seed protein (in that order) to hit this 20g number from sources I’d be happy to put in my body, every single day.
I like the fact that we are getting protein from different sources, while also creating something you can actually enjoy eating.
Some of the more natural or vegan bars I've tried have almost gone too far in the opposite direction.
The ingredient list looks decent, but then you bite into them and they are dry, crumbly and miserable which means you won’t consume them, nullifying their value proposition entirely!
Or, they contain nowhere near enough quality protein for me to consider them a serious option.
Being natural doesn't excuse a poor nutritional profile and having great macros doesn't excuse poor ingredients. In order for me to sign this Longevity Bar off, it had to have both.
Closer to Nature…
This is probably where the Longevity Bar becomes most aligned with how I personally think about nutrition.
Alongside the protein, you're seeing ingredients such as gluten-free oats, honey, peanut butter, almond butter and coconut oil.
Those are ingredients I recognise which matters to me because I wanted this bar to take things back towards nature.
I am fed up of reading ingredient lists that are full of the usual suspects, picked entirely due to cost engineering and convenience. I wanted to consume a protein bar every single day which was closer to something Sunshine and I would make in the kitchen at home, rather than mass produced on mass.
With enough effort and endeavor, we got there in the end.
Why Put Longevity Ingredients Into a Bar?
So let me explain why it is called the Longevity Bar.
This is where we had the opportunity to make the product genuinely Unmatched.
From day one, our brand focused on bridging the gap between longevity and performance which is why we had to ensure it provided genuine impact on all fronts. With an entirely natural ingredients panel and 20g of protein, performance is well and truly taken care of.
However, I am also extremely interested in biological aging, cellular health, cognition, recovery and what my body is going to look and perform like decades from now.
That thinking is why we included ingredients such as Lion's Mane, Cordyceps and Yüth® Spermidine.
I personally use and discuss ingredients in the longevity space regularly, so incorporating that philosophy into something as everyday as a nutrition bar made sense to me.
Ultimately, if we are to sustain high intensity training and optimal performance, longevity must remain a daily consideration for us all; there is no getting away from that fact.
Don't Fairy-Dust Ingredients Into My Food
This drives me mad in the supplement industry, a brand will take an ingredient people recognise, add a tiny amount of it to a product and then plaster the ingredient across the marketing.
Consumers naturally assume they're getting a meaningful amount, sometimes they're getting virtually nothing.
That isn't how I want Unmatched operating.
If we're going to put functional ingredients into the Longevity Bar, I want them disclosed.
Tell people what is in it, tell them how much they're getting and let them make an informed decision.
You shouldn't need to decode your food, transparency is especially important when you're positioning something around health and longevity.
Our customer base shows incredible loyalty and I truly believe that is simply down to the fact we are entirely transparent, refuse to cut corners (even when it would pay us to) and ensure our customers are always treated with respect. They are smart enough to know the difference, in part because we educate them, therefore the product always needs to stand up to scrutiny. In fact, I actually appreciate their accountability and desire for the best because it’s exactly what I expect too!
So, Have I Changed My Opinion on Protein Bars?
In a word, no. The majority of bars in the category either have good macros and s*** quality, or terrible macros and bad taste! Therefore, my advice remains that most protein bars are simply not something I would myself consume or indeed feel comfortable recommending.
However, I have changed my opinion on what a protein bar or meal replacement bar can be. Being completely candid, when we started the R+D project on our Longevity Bar, I was initially sceptical as to whether we could create something that was going to give me the macro profiles I expect, along with the natural quality and delicious taste. My team asked me to trust them because they believed we could do it, and over time after many iterations (which I previously shared), they proved themselves to be right.
The category doesn't have to remain a choice between highly processed macro-engineered candy bars and natural products that taste like compressed cardboard and contain inadequate protein.
The fact is, most brands just choose to deliver what the market will tolerate because the mainstream do not know better.
Unmatched customers do, and I believe our Longevity Bar is going to blow each and every one of you away!
A New Chapter for the Protein Bar Category…
Twenty six years after eating those bars in America and feeling like absolute s*** afterwards, I finally have a bar I actually want to eat AND that can contribute to my health-span
If you've heard me criticise protein bars for years, you'll understand why that statement carries some weight having gone through this blog.
With our Longevity Bar, you have a tool to help you hit your daily protein target, satisfy cravings, support your longevity all the while coming without ANY compromise on quality.
Whether you are travelling for work, hiking up a mountain, going on holiday or simply in need of a fast healthy snack every day, you can wholeheartedly rely on the Longevity Bar.
