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Getting enough protein in your diet is beneficial for everyone no matter if they are looking to lose weight, add muscle, perform in an athletic competition or just be healthy.
Protein also tends to be the one macronutrient most people struggle to get enough of. One reason why is because high quality protein takes time to prepare and also tends to be expensive in comparison to carbohydrates and fats (especially the highly processed carbohydrates and fats).
Of course food companies are quick to address a gap in the market and realize that they can “help” fill this need by offering convenient protein options for folks. Hence the rise of foods like protein bars, protein powders, and other high protein processed foods like cereals, chips, cookies etc.
This raises an interesting conundrum for a lot of people, they know they need to reach their protein goal, but at the same time they know processed foods will generally make reaching most goals more difficult due the fact they tend to be easy to overconsume, lack in quality ingredients, and can potentially come with side effects like GI upset.
So are highly processed high protein foods actually beneficial for you?
The answer is going to be highly dependent on the context of the individual. However as always I will recommend we start with the basics.
Whole Foods First: Maximizing Natural Protein Sources
First let’s ask the question of where your protein intake is currently at?
Let’s say you have a modest goal of reaching 150 grams of protein a day.
How close to you are you?
Are you eating 75g (50%) or less a day on average?
If so then you shouldn’t be thinking about whether highly processed foods high in protein are beneficial or not because you have too much to gain from adding in more whole food protein sources. Remember that whole food protein sources come with a variety of benefits outside of just protein. For example, in addition to protein, whole food protein sources contain vitamins and minerals that are going to be immensely beneficial to your overall health and goals.
If you find yourself missing your protein goal by 50% or more you just need to eat more whole food protein, see this post for how to go about doing this.
Overcoming Protein Intake Challenges
Let’s say you are someone who again has the goal of eating 150 grams of protein a day and you are consistently getting around 130 grams a day from whole foods. However due to time constraints or just a general lack of desire to eat any more, you struggle to get in the last 20 or so grams of protein.
This is also equally as common as completely missing the mark when it comes to protein intake. Many people do fairly well getting their protein from whole foods but then hit a wall and come up just shy of the mark.
Before considering highly processed high protein foods I would first check to see if some of the below tips and tricks can help.
Expanding Your Eating Window
First thing I would ask yourself if there is a place for another protein feeding in your day.
A perfect example would be someone who is using some kind of condensed eating window or is practicing some form of intermittent fasting. In both cases these people may be trying to eat a lot of protein in a small window of time making it very difficult to get in all the protein they need.
Being more relaxed about your eating window or allowing yourself to eat some whole food protein outside of that window would help immensely. You could easily close the 20 gram gap in your protein goal by having a can of salmon outside of your eating window and still get many of the benefits of your condensed eating window.
Combating Palate Fatigue
Another problem that comes up often is palate fatigue when consuming protein. Lets face it, grilled chicken is not the most appetizing thing in the world! I get it, protein is much less exciting than a donut 😉 However you can combat this by trying to vary the protein you are eating from meal to meal but also within the same meal.
Many people have been conditioned to eat “diet foods” when cleaning up their diet or health. For example, they only eat tuna, or only eat chicken breast, or only eat turkey bacon, or only eat tilapia. This gets old and is frankly unnecessary.
What if instead you cooked up a chicken breast AND a chicken thigh and had a little of both?
What if you had ground turkey and ground beef?
What if you had cod for lunch but a ribeye for dinner?
By mixing and matching protein sources from meal to meal or even adding 2-3 different protein sources within one meal it might make adding in that extra protein to get the additional 20g much easier.
Balancing Protein Throughout the Day
Next on my list of things to ask yourself if you are falling just shy of your protein goal is if the amount of protein you are getting at each meal is balanced or if you are falling short of protein at a given meal?
What I commonly observe in many people who are falling short on meeting their protein goal is that their breakfast is really low in protein. When you have a breakfast that is low in protein you often find yourself at dinner suddenly having to make up a massive gap that is too much to close.
For example, if you need to eat 150g of protein a day and you only eat 3 eggs at breakfast you still have another 129g of protein to eat in the rest of your meals. Say lunch has 40 grams of protein. Guess what? Now dinner needs to have 89 grams of protein. For most people that is an impossible amount to eat.
Now consider if you ate 3 eggs, 3 egg whites, and ½ cup of low fat yogurt or cottage cheese. Now you are close to 50 grams of protein at breakfast. That gives you a much better chance for hitting your protein goal by the time dinner rolls around.
Choosing High-Quality Protein Sources
The other thing that might be holding you back from hitting that protein goal is selecting protein sources that are not actually that high in protein. It is easy to think that any animal based food will be high in protein. While that is general as a rule of thumb it is a bit more nuanced than that. Most animal based protein sources come with some amount of fat. The ratio to fat and protein can vary based on the cut and the animal the meat is coming from. Poultry tends to have less fat than protein while red meat can sometimes come with quite a bit of fat. Of course the more fattier the meats the more tasty they are so we naturally tend to choose fattier cuts of meat.
The perfect example is bacon.
Most people love bacon and it comes from an animal so it must be a good source of protein, right?
No it is not, it’s mostly fat and if you were relying on bacon to get your protein you are going to have a hard time doing so.
So if you find yourself falling short of your protein goal take a look at the fat to protein ratio of the meat in your diet. It is OK to have fattier cuts of meat in your diet, you just need to balance that out with leaner sources (for example you can mix and match protein sources at a meal like we talked about above).
As a side note, the same problem can happen with plant based sources of protein but instead of being high in fat and low in protein they will be high in carbs and low in protein.
The Protein Bar Dilemma
Now we come to the main point of this post…
If you are doing all the things above but are still falling short of your protein goal, are highly processed protein foods worth while in helping you reach your protein goals?
As always we will need to dive into the specifics.
The most popular highly processed protein foods are going to be protein bars. I have a lot of clients ask me about the best protein bars out there. Frankly I have only found one protein bar that I would comfortably recommend to someone (keep reading to find out what that is!). Many have ingredients that I wouldn’t want clients eating on the regular, many don’t have enough protein or the quality of that protein is not good, and many come with a lot of calories and make the calorie per gram of protein pretty poor.
Evaluating Protein Content
When looking at a protein bar first look at how much protein there is in the bar. Most will have around 10g of protein. Ask yourself, “Is that enough to help you reach your protein goal?” In most cases, it won’t be enough.
Assessing Protein Quality
Then look at the type of protein. Many of the bars will use collagen. While collagen is good, it’s not a complete protein and shouldn’t be counted towards your overall protein goal (To learn more about collagen, its benefits, and why IT SHOULD NOT be counted towards meeting your protein goal, see this post.).
Some bars will use plant based protein. While this might be OK it really all depends on the type and the combination of plant proteins used. Pea, rice, and soy proteins would be best in terms of plant proteins.
Considering Calorie-to-Protein Ratio
If it has a decent amount of high quality protein the next thing to check are the total calories in the protein bar. You might find a protein bar that contains 20g of protein from a high quality source but also has 250 calories. That’s a calorie per gram of protein ratio of 12.5 calories per gram of protein. That is quite high in comparison to a lean animal based protein. If you don’t have the room for those calories in your diet, eating that protein bar would not be worth it.
Scrutinizing Ingredients
Finally check the ingredients. Is there a bunch of added sugars? Are they using oils that you don’t want to consume? Are they using artificial sweeteners that may upset your stomach? Basically see if the ingredients on the package meets a standard that is acceptable to you.
So if I don’t have a protein bar that I recommend, what would I recommend instead?
Jerky: A Natural Alternative to Protein Bars
What I do myself and recommend to my clients is to instead use jerky. Jerky is essentially nature’s protein bar. Just like protein bars though they can suffer from some of the same issues.
Be careful though, not all jerkies are created equal. You will find a lot of jerkies that contain a lot of fat making the calorie to protein ratio very low and/or include some added ingredients you might not want to consume.
I do have a couple of recommendations for you that I like and use personally. Below are links to the products I personally like (I have no affiliation with any of these brands).
There are certainly more brands out there I am sure but those are my favorites at the moment.
The One Protein Bar I Recommend
Recently a new company has emerged in the protein bar space that actually has a decent protein bar. The company is called David (after Michalangelos statue of David). This protein bar ticks most of the boxes in what I recommend you look for.
It actually contains a decent amount of protein, each bar has 28 grams of protein from milk, collagen, whey, and egg whites. Yes the collagen in it is not a complete protein but the rest of the protein sources are.
You also get those 28 grams of protein for only 150 calories which means the bar has an excellent protein to calorie ratio.
Finally the ingredients are relatively good. Not to say that they are good as a clean jerky bar but they are not bad overall.
My favorite flavors are chocolate chip, and birthday cake. Let me know what you think if you check them out!
Side Note: I am an affiliate for David, if you purchase using the link above I will get a few bucks from it.
Conclusion: Are Protein Bars Good for Your Health?
So are protein bars good for your health?
I think before you consider using a protein bar in order to reach your protein goals you need to consider if you can change your eating habits slightly in order to reach your protein goals without the need for a highly processed protein food like a bar.
Can you extend your eating window?
Can you try combining different protein sources to decrease palate fatigue?
Can you front load more of your protein earlier in the day?
Can you select leaner protein sources?
If you are already doing these things and want to try and use a protein bar make sure you check the amount of protein in it, the type of protein being used, how many calories come along with the protein, and the other ingredients used in the bar.
Personally I think you would be hard pressed to find a protein bar that checks all the boxes and for that reason I suggest you consider using jerky instead.
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I just ate a Country Archer beef stick with 90 calories and 9 grams of fat. Yummy!