More Power to You

By ADAM COHEN

They beckon from supermarket-check-out racks with alluring packaging and absurdly tasty-sounding flavors: chocolate banana split, java chip, mocha latte swirl. But unlike candy and cookies, energy bars have staked out the nutritional high ground. They promise guilt-free bursts of energy and obscure but seemingly healthful extras--antioxidants, "fast-burn nutrition technology" and, in the breathless words of one, "31,000 mg amino acids!"

No wonder Americans are eating them up. Energy-bar sales are expected to hit $500 million in 1998, up 40% in a year. And they have moved from the retail fringe--health-food stores and bike shops--to become a grocery- and convenience-store staple. When Balance Bar, the fastest-growing barmaker, went public last spring, Wall Street tagged it with a "buy" rating and predicted soaring revenues. Industry optimists are hoping that energy bars will eventually match the $2 billion-a-year sales of sport drinks like Gatorade.

Energy bars were invented with hard-core athletes in mind. Brian Maxwell, distance-running coach at the University of California, Berkeley, and his wife Jennifer cooked up the first PowerBars in their kitchen in 1983. They were looking for a performance-enhancing food that marathoners could scarf down late in a race. The Maxwells made a bar that was about 45% complex carbohydrates and only 10% fat. But the trade-off was losing some foodlike qualities: PowerBars have a rubbery texture that can take some getting used to.

Today energy bars are increasingly being targeted to weekend warriors and office workers. They're pitched as a way to eat breakfast on the run or to dose up with a burst of energy late in the workday--to help, as PowerBar says, with "life's daily marathons." But as they enter the mainstream, many are dropping the ascetic rubber-brick ethos in favor of more savory--and fat-laden--formulas that appeal to a wider market.

The upshot is that energy bars today are a mixed bag. At the stoic extreme is MET-Rx, the nation's No. 3-selling brand, whose carb- and protein-heavy bars have 40% of the zinc, copper, chromium and magnesium you need in a day, along with a boatload of vitamins and almost no fat. But even MET-Rx concedes that its chalky bars are no treat. "If you're virtuous, you're going to trade off taste," says MET-Rx CEO Len Moskovits. "Try chewing on a vitamin pill--it doesn't taste that good." Pure Protein's slightly medicinal-tasting bars pack an impressive 31 grams of protein, more than in a McDonald's Quarter Pounder.

At the gourmet end of the spectrum, the eating gets better. Clif Bars, the taste standard of the category, are sweet and chewy, just a bit denser than a granola bar. And Balance Bars make a decent stand-in for a candy bar. The trouble is that the taste comes at a price. A honey-peanut Balance Bar has 200 calories and six grams of fat--that's twice the calories of a banana and six times the fat. Balance Bar says 30% fat is ideal, but many nutritionists say it's too high. Clif's cookies 'n cream packs in 250 calories, more than a Nestle's Crunch bar.

As sales have taken off, energy-bar makers are avidly extending their brands. PowerBar has introduced PowerGel, a liquid goo for athletes who don't have time to chew. But many of the new products cater to consumers' baser instincts. Balance Bar has a new larger bar with 300 calories and more than a quarter of the saturated fat you need in a day. Even the purists at PowerBar have rolled out a better-tasting Harvest line, with twice the fat of the original. Maxwell diplomatically calls them "a recognition that people want a complete eating experience."

Nutritionists say energy bars can be part of a healthy diet. But they worry about the "Snackwell phenomenon." As with Nabisco's tasty low-fat cookies, consumers may be so blinded by the health claims that they lose track of how much they eat. "I just saw a swimmer today who had two bars before practice, and another afterward with a full breakfast," says Kristine Clark, Penn State's director of sports nutrition. "She's 15 lbs. overweight, and she doesn't know she's doing anything wrong."