Are you going to eat Protein Bars? Great, me too. I follow a majority whole foods plant based diet but protein bars still carve out a niche. Convenience, fallback whilst travelling, sometimes nutritious, sometimes delicious! If you care about more than just the flavour which are the best gluten free & vegan protein bars though? To answer that read this Protein Bar Nutrition Comparison covering 52 gluten free & vegan protein bars from 15 different brands on sale in the UK.
This article dives into the devil of detail in the form of numbers, glorious numbers. If instead you just want recommendations for what to buy jump over to the companion post Best Gluten Free & Vegan Protein Bars
Protein Bar Nutrition Comparison Criteria
To be included in this Protein Bar Nutrition Comparison bars needed to meet three simple criteria
- Gluten Free & Dairy Free
- Minimum of 15 grams protein per 100 grams
- On sale in the UK
Specifically excluded are:
- Bars using any kind of oats as an ingredient
- Bars with “May Contain” type warnings for gluten with one exception
- Bars with long lists of bizarre ingredients with one partial exception
Rules need exceptions of course. Exception to the Exclusion rule #2 is Primal Pantry. Primal Pantry apply a May Contain warning for gluten. The reason for this is well explained within their Primal Pantry FAQ page. May Contain labels are a mess. They may or may not give useful information! I treat them as a prompt to ask the producer about the risk if I am interested in the product. As a very cautious coeliac I feel comfortable eating Primal Pantry Bars. Please do make your own decision.
Partial exception to Exclusion rule #3 Sunwarrior Sol Good. They get a pass for using my favourite non caloric sweetener, erythritol. Learn about erythritol.
Macro Nutrient Comparison
For full detail click the link to open a Google Docs Protein Bar Nutrition Comparison sheet. The comparison within covers all of the following.
- Calories and Protein per Bar
- Macros per 100 grams to enable direct like for like comparisons
- Per Bar and per 100 gram prices based on purchases of the normally available deals
- Ingredient lists, allergens and May Contain label information
Click to Open the Google Sheet for the full detail
Context and Caveats
This Protein Bar Nutrition Comparison was last updated in April 2019. All information should be accurate to that date but is provided for comparison and entertainment only! Please always check and confirm what is important to you before buying or eating.
- There is a lot of variation within the Brand ranges
- Values are rounded for easier reading
- Prices include frequently available bulk buy and discount deals
- ‘Gluten-Free Label’ and ‘Dairy Free Label’ indicates whether these are specifically claimed on the packaging
- Allergens and May Contain labels are copied direct from packaging as of April 2019
- All Kind Bars are included but of these only 3 make the 15 gram protein threshold
Highest & Lowest Protein (April 2019)
Protein quantity is higher for bars that actually market themselves as Protein Bar. The bottom of the table 9 Barsdo not call themselves Protein Bars. Protein is also higher within bars using one or more protein powders – usually rice, pea or soy – rather than relying on their whole food ingredients alone.
Many Protein Bars, including the excellent Pulsin’ Bars, contain just over 20 grams protein per 100 grams. In contrast to protein powders, animal foods and some less whole food based bars all the bars included have significant carbohydrate and fat content.
Top 10 highest protein and Top 5 lowest protein gluten free vegan protein bars
Highest & Lowest Sugar (April 2019)
This table presents the bars highest and lowest in sugars together with carbohydrate and fibre values. Higher carbs and even high sugar is not necessarily bad. You might actually want a bar that offers both protein and carbs. You might even want a bar that is relatively high in sugars and lower in fibre, for example if you want a more rapid source of energy. If you are just looking for a general purpose high protein snack I would go for low sugar and high fibre.
Top 10 lowest sugar and Top 5 highest sugar gluten free vegan protein bars
Sunwarrior sure does look great at the top of that table. However be cautious about the basic numbers, I would favour the Naturya Bar within the top 5. Why? Lets take a look at the ingredients. The Naturya Bar features only real food ingredients you can see, pronounce and may have in your kitchen cupboard. Okay, I concede, maybe a particularly exotic kitchen cupboard! I do have everything except the agave fibre!
Which would you prefer to eat? :-)
Brand Overview (April 2019)
Prices shown are those available via bulk buys and in some cases frequently available discounts. 9Bars are a clear value winner but there are plenty of reasons to choose other bars too. I personally go for a combination of flavour, low sugar, high fibre, a mix of different proteins and ideally no emulsifiers. Access the Protein Bar Nutrition Comparison sheet to interrogate the detail and find your favourites.
The averages shown for the brands are only for those bars that meet the 15 gram protein criteria. Primal Pantry, Eat Natural and Kind Bars all have bars which do not meet this criteria and those bars are not included.
Highest Protein & Fibre and Lowest Sugars highlighted Green, Lowest Protein & Highest Sugars highlighted Red
Best Gluten Free Vegan Protein Bars
Instead of numbers you may like to read opinions of which are the best bars. Best tasting. Most nutritious. Great value. For that and more jump over to Best Gluten Free & Vegan Protein Bars
Before you go, what did I miss? What is your favourite? If you can name another bar that fit the criteria I will taste test it and gift you Amazon credit for the price of 3 of them. Promise! If you spot an error please tell me and I will correct it. Is there some analysis you would like to see added to the comparison? Tell me and I will probably add it.
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Carlos Taylor says
March 27, 2019 at 8:02 amGreat list! Would it be possible to add a column of protein by calorie, similar to the one you have for protein by weight, e.g., per 100 kcal protein.
As a side note, found your blog yesterday and really enjoying going though it. Planning on moving to London soon, and your posts are sure going to come in handy. Thanks!
Benjamin says
March 27, 2019 at 5:22 pmHola Carlos, thanking you and very soon . . . welcome to London! :-)
I have some updates to make! New Bars from Tribe, and Kind Protein Bars, and inclusion of Protein Balls. I could potentially add the per 100 kcal protein metric but let me test something with you. The bars that have more protein per gram also pretty much inevitably have more protein per kcal. There is a little variation since some bars have more fat, others more carbs, but the per kcal would play out very similar to the per 100g. If you go direct to the google sheet you can also sort on the kcal column. Are you able to do that?
Sharing too that I hope to be launching my own range of vegan, gluten-free protein bars but they are very, very different to all these lovely dessert themed bars I have taste tested!
Carlos Taylor says
March 28, 2019 at 10:55 amThanks for your reply! I actually copied your spreadsheet and added the column for the calories, which wouldn’t be as accurate I guess because of the rounding errors. Anyway, for the most part you’re right, it correlates with weight. That said, Vive have a significantly higher amount of protein per calorie than the others when compared by weight vs calorie.
Looking forward for your updates and your bars!
Benjamin says
April 3, 2019 at 3:39 pmHola Carlos! Both the Nutrition Comparison and ‘Best of’ articles are now updated. Updates include the addition of Tribe Bars, the new Kind Protein Bar (only one is Vegan), new Eat Natural “Protein Packed Bars” and the macros for new Planet Organic Raw Protein Bars.
I have a review up for the Tribe Protein Bars and one of them has become a top five favourite for flavor!
Next up on my taste-testing review list is the new Planet Organic Raw Protein Bars and reformulated bars from Nutreelife.