In this article I review 24 of the top protein bars without artificial sweeteners currently on the market.
We’ll compare how much protein they provide us and take a close look at their nutrition facts & ingredients too.
Those are good things to do when it comes to buying a protein bar, since there’s no shortage of junk out there.
There are umpteen brands marketing an army of protein bars at us, just look:
And as you’ll soon see…
…there’s still a huge difference in quality & purity among these 24 protein bars, even after eliminating all the ones with artificial sweeteners in them.
To kick things off, below are a few arbitrary rankings I put together.
Throughout the article, product images & any product names in blue are links to their Amazon product page if you want to check out current price & buyers’ opinions, & they open in a separate browser.
Protein bars without artificial sweeteners
Top 6 by product purity
Last update on 2022-12-01 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Top 5 by buyer ratings
Last update on 2022-12-01 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Top 6 by protein content
Last update on 2022-12-01 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Top 6 by cheapest cost/oz.
Last update on 2022-12-01 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
(last time I checked anyway, Fall 2022)
Most processed & least pure
Last update on 2022-12-01 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Least amount of protein
Last update on 2022-12-01 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Glossary
Product purity
My subjective viewpoint based on how clean the ingredients are, & we’ll look at all of those a little later.
Protein content
Ranked by grams per bar.
Buyer ratings
Based on average ⭐ of all online reviews at this time.
Most processed / Least pure
The opposite of Product Purity above, these are the bars with the most artificial &/or unwanted ingredients.
Least amount of protein
Pretty self-explanatory. By the way, to qualify for the article a protein bar had to have a minimum of 8 grams of protein.
What’s next
Later on I will have individual reviews of all 24 protein bars included in this article, not just the ones in those Top 5 lists.
Next though, I want to take a little look at the processed nature of protein bars.
Science resources included
As is my custom here on heydayDo, I will provide links to all of the relevant sports science & medical resources, clinical studies, and nutritional data used in this article.
No artificial sweeteners, but…
There’s no getting around the simple fact that even with the cleanest ingredients, a protein bar is a processed food.
Some were born in labs, some have things in them that were created in chemical plants, & all of the popular ones are manufactured in food factories.
Grandma’s not in her kitchen baking these in the oven for us.
So while none of these 24 protein bars have artificial sweeteners in them, several of them have ingredients that we might want to avoid.
Gettin’ good at label reading is a nice trait to develop…😉
The quest for the perfect protein bar
I’ve dug around for clean & pure protein products a couple of times before, and then written articles about the gems I uncovered:
Top 8 Protein Powders Without Artificial Sweeteners
In both of those cases it wasn’t too hard to find several 100% pure or real clean products worth recommending.
Good luck striking gold in a protein bar
With protein bars though, it’s a tougher task to find that special bar that has all 3 of the following characteristics:
- high-protein (say, > 15 grams)
- no artificial anything (sweeteners, fillers, etc.)
- tastes like it’s from planet Earth
So I’m resigning myself to the (apparent) fact that I can’t be as much of a stickler for purity like I was with the BCAAs & protein powders.
Artificial sweeteners
Sugar substitutes are no strangers to controversy.
After all, on the one hand the FDA’s approved them for mass consumption.
But on the other hand there are concerned physicians & dietitians recommending we avoid artificial sweeteners due to health risks. (1)
Lack of research on human use
The effects of long-term use of artificial sweeteners hasn’t been studied on humans much, so research evidence is lacking. (2)
Current medical questions
Recently some prominent health authorities have brought up more health concerns, and you can check out their comments in the links below if interested.
Sharecare (a couple of short vids)
Bottom line (for me anyway):
I’m not convinced that the FDA has my best interests at heart.
Nor do I need research evidence to convince me to stop consuming artificial sweeteners.
I avoid artificial anything whenever I can, just out of general principle:
Nature > Man-made chemicals
And with artificial sweeteners that’s real easy, ‘cause I REALLY dislike the way they taste.
A few words on sugar alcohols
In case you’re unfamiliar with them, sugar alcohols are a processed ingredient often extracted out of fruit, and they’re used as a sugar substitute.
You’ll see their quantity listed on a Nutrition Facts label, and their names in the Ingredients section; they usually end in -ol:
- erythritol
- maltitol
- mannitol
- sorbitol
- xylitol
- lactitol
- isomalt
Initially, I was going to make a personal choice of mine and exclude bars that had any sugar alcohol, since technically sugar alcohols aren’t an artificial sweetener.
Actually, they’re not a sugar either; sugar alcohols are simply classified as a carbohydrate by the science & medical communities. (3)
Plus, the FDA lists them as natural sweeteners. (4)
Considered natural, but don’t taste like it
Despite all those facts & official classifications, for a moment or two I thought about leaving protein bars sweetened with sugar alcohol out of this article.
For one thing, I taste an “artificial-ness” in things made with sugar alcohols.
“Rumbly in my tumbly” – Winnie the Pooh
And my other rationale for excluding bars with sugar alcohol was because eating them sometimes gives my stomach a little discomfort.
It didn’t happen every time I down something with a sugar alcohol in it and it’s not super uncomfortable to deal with by any means, but it did get my attention.
The main culprit in my diet was the omnipresent Pure Protein line of snack bars.
Since I’m not the only one experiencing unwanted gastrointestinal adventures from eating sugar alcohols, I almost added them to the list of “banned ingredients” for this protein bar review.
But I didn’t, and you’ll find that a few of the most popular bars made with sugar alcohols are also featured in this article:
- Quest
- Met-Rx
- Gatorade
- Orgain
(Pure Protein bars have sucralose in them, so they didn’t make the team here.)
What’s not in these protein bars
Below is a list of the most common artificial sweeteners we’re likely to find in processed foods like protein bars.
Protein bars that have any of the sweeteners listed below were excluded from this review, regardless of their popularity or protein quantity.
Sucralose
- AKA Splenda®
- FDA says it’s A-OK. (6)
- Old research using rats found health issues, but no long-term human studies have been done.
Acesulfame potassium
- AKA Ace-k
- FDA OK’d it in 1988 and never looked back. (9)
- Evidence of risks exist but again, no long-term studies on humans have been conducted.
These two — sucralose & Ace-k — are the biggies you’ll most likely see in a flavored protein product that is sugar-free.
I’ll list the other sweeteners that the food industry uses, but I don’t think they’re used much (if at all) by the supplement companies that crank out protein bars & powders.
Aspartame
- AKA Equal® & NutraSweet® (11)
- Links to health problems aren’t well-substantiated, though rumors abound.
- FDA & other world-leading health authorities say its OK.
Saccharin – AKA Sweet ‘N Low®
Advantame – FDA approved in 2014. (15)
Neotame – FDA says it’s OK; I’ve never come across it. (16)
Cyclamate – banned in the US, OK for use elsewhere. (17)
Protein bar reviews
Alrighty then, onto examining the 24 sucralose-free bars individually.
Besides main features like grams of protein & sodium, I have Ingredients and Nutrition Facts labels you can check out too.
I might mention a notable thing or two that comes to mind along the way…
…but I’m going with the assumption that you’ll be seeing the same stuff (good or bad) that I am, down in the macros and ingredients info I’ve provided.
Taste is a very subjective personal preference
I don’t provide my opinion on how they taste for a few good reasons:
1. We all have our own individual taste preferences, and mine are probably abnormal anyway. So how I think something tastes is irrelevant & probably useless info to share here.
2. You can click the image or product name and be instantly connected to tens of thousands of people who are happy to tell you how they think it tastes.
3. For the bars in this review that I haven’t ever tried (there’s 9 of them I think), I have no desire to plunk down the cash to buy a box of each of them, since those particular ones aren’t sold individually where I live.
How they’re listed here
By the way…
…the order in which these protein bars appear below is only based on their buyers’ ratings — not on how clean of a product it is, or how much protein it has in it.
Indeed, you’ll be coming across some popular sucralose-free bars that have a bucketful of artificial ingredients and a lot of processing.
(Here’s looking at you, Met-Rx and Gatorade.)
Buyer ratings & their comments
The ⭐ rating is calculated using all online reviews available at the time I wrote this article.
The % number you see is the percentage of reviewers who gave the product a 5 or a 4 star rating.
To check current price &/or read buyer comments on Amazon, click on the bar’s pic or its product name.
24 best protein bars without artificial sweeteners
Power Crunch Triple Chocolate
4.8 ⭐ 95% 1,300+ online reviews
Features
Protein – 13g
Sugar – 5g
Sodium – 100mg
GoMacro Macrobar, Blueberry Cashew
4.7 ⭐ 92% 3,900+ online reviews
Features
Protein – 11g
Sugar – 12g
Sodium – 5mg
KIND Protein, Crunchy Peanut Butter
4.7 ⭐ 92% 3,400+ online reviews
Features
Protein – 12g
Sugar – 7g
Sodium – 135mg
Good2Go Protein Bar
4.7 ⭐ 94% 250 online reviews
Features
Protein – 18g
Sugar – 15g
Sodium – 85mg
MET-Rx Big 100 – Crispy Apple Pie
4.7 ⭐ 93% 700+ online reviews
Features
Protein – 31g
Sugar – 30g
Sodium – 390mg
thinkThin Lean Protein Salted Caramel
4.6 ⭐ 92% 80+ online reviews
Features
Protein – 10g
Sugar – 5g
Sodium – 200mg
Gatorade Whey Protein Recover
4.6 ⭐ 90% 10,500+ online reviews
Features
Protein – 20g
Sugar – 41g
Sodium – 160mg
Lenny & Larry’s The Complete Cookie
4.6 ⭐ 89% 12,100+ online reviews
Features
Protein – 8g
Sugar – 12g
Sodium – 220mg
Notes
Marketed as a 16-gram protein cookie, but note the serving size on the Nutrition Facts panel is listed as 1/2 a cookie — so only 8 grams there.
My guess is that this is done to obscure the fact that in order to get that 16 grams of protein, you’ll need to also knock down:
- 420 calories, about 100 of which is from palm oil
- 14g of fat
- 440mg of sodium
- & 24g of sugar
MET-Rx Protein Plus Bar
4.6 ⭐ 89% 5,000+ online reviews
Features
Protein – 30g
Sugar – 3g
Sodium – 510mg
Notes
I must confess: this bar doesn’t qualify to be here, because it has sucralose in it.
I put it in to use it as an example of how processed a protein bar can be.
I think there’s a reason the font size on their ingredients & Nutrition Facts panel is so small — my guess is they don’t want us to try & read what’s in this thing.
So besides sucralose, it does have other sweeteners as well:
- the sugar alcohols sorbitol & maltitol;
- cane syrup;
- sugar;
- fructose.
From the looks of things it has another 40+ ingredients in it too, many of whom are cooked up in a lab.
And 510mg of sodium in one bar?
I wonder if it glows in the dark…
thinkThin Vegan Chocolate Mint
4.6 ⭐ 88% 1,200+ online reviews
Features
Protein – 13g
Sugar – 5g
Sodium – 160mg
#11 – 24
Oatmega Protein Bars, Vanilla Almond
4.6 ⭐ 87% 500+ online reviews
Features
Protein – 14g
Sugar – 5g
Sodium – 120mg
Zing Plant-Based Protein Bar
4.5 ⭐ 88% 1,000+ online reviews
Features
Protein – 13g
Sugar – 12g
Sodium – 160mg
Rx Bar Chocolate Sea Salt
4.5 ⭐ 85% 22,100+ online reviews
Features
Protein – 12g
Sugar – 13g
Sodium – 260mg
Rise Bar Almond Honey
4.4 ⭐ 84% 2,300+ online reviews
Features
Protein – 20g
Sugar – 13g
Sodium – 25mg
Notes
Just 3 ingredients:
- almonds
- honey
- whey protein isolate
ALOHA Chocolate Chip Cookie
4.4 ⭐ 84% 750+ online reviews
Features
Protein – 14g
Sugar – 4g
Sodium – 80mg
Quest Nutrition Protein Bar
4.4 ⭐ 82% 46,000+ online reviews
Features
Protein – 20g
Sugar – 2g
Sodium – 200mg
My notes
Here in 16th place (according to buyers’ ratings) is one of the biggest-selling protein bars, with or without sucralose.
It seemed unusual to me at first that the top-selling Quest only ranked 16th in buyer satisfaction, so I looked for a rationale to explain it.
I can only venture a guess as to how a really popular product doesn’t have a higher rating than it does, so here’s mine for Quest.
Some Quest bars have sucralose, some don’t
Quest sells over 20 different flavors of this protein bar.
And as it turns out, over 2/3 of those have sucralose in them.
Only the 7 flavors I list below are the Quest bars I found without it:
- Chocolate Hazelnut
- Chocolate Peanut Butter
- Cinnamon Roll
- Double Chocolate Chunk
- Maple Waffle
- Mocha Chocolate Chip
- Peanut Butter Brownie Smash
Maybe some people who didn’t want sucralose in their bar accidentally picked a flavor that had it, and left a 1-star review.
My other guess is that out of those 20+ flavors they sell a ton of, maybe a few of them taste bad.
(I bought a variety 12-pack directly from Quest, and not all of those won my taste buds over…)
think! High Protein Bars
(formerly known as thinkThin)
4.3 ⭐ 82% 11,000+ online reviews
Features
Protein – 20g
Sugar – 0g
Sodium – 220mg
IQBAR Brain + Body, Chocolate Lovers
4.3 ⭐ 81% 6,400+ online reviews
Features
Protein – 12g
Sugar – 0g
Sodium – 210mg
Clif Bar Whey Salted Caramel Cashew
4.3 ⭐ 81% 500+ online reviews
Features
Protein – 14g
Sugar – 5g
Sodium – 200mg
Exo Bar Chocolate Fudge Brownie
4.2 ⭐ 79% 170+ online reviews
Features
Protein – 16g
Sugar – 8g
Sodium – 200mg
Notes
The protein’s from crickets, which has 10x the amount of vitamin B12 as salmon and twice the iron of spinach, or so say the folks selling it.
Health Warrior Organic Pumpkin Seed Bars
4.2 ⭐ 78% 3,900+ online reviews
Features
Protein – 8g
Sugar – 7g
Sodium – 65mg
Orgain Organic Vegan Protein Bar
4.2 ⭐ 76% 4,200+ online reviews
Features
Protein – 10g
Sugar – 6g
Sodium – 125mg
Larabar Protein Bar
4.2 ⭐ 79% 650+ online reviews
Features
Protein – 11g
Sugar – 19g (the #1 ingredient is dates)
Sodium – 115mg
No Cow Protein Bar
4.1 ⭐ 71% 4,100+ online reviews
Features
Protein – 21g
Sugar – 1g
Sodium – 220mg
Bulletproof Collagen Protein Bar
4.0 ⭐ 74% 2,400+ online reviews
Features
Protein – 11g
Sugar – 2g
Sodium – 70mg
FAQ
Here are answers to a few commonly asked questions about protein bars without sucralose, artificial sweeteners, etc.
Is it bad to eat protein bars everyday?
Whether or not a protein bar is healthy enough to eat daily depends on what's in it. It is important to know its ingredients and the amount of protein, fat, carbs, calories, sugar, & calories it has.
Do quest protein bars have artificial sweeteners?
The majority of Quest bars currently on the market have sucralose, but not all of them. So you'll need to read the ingredients label to check for sucralose; it's usually one of the last things listed.
Which protein bars dont have sugar alcohols?
Five of the best protein bars without sugar alcohols are:
* Rise Whey Protein Bars
* KIND Crunchy Peanut Butter Protein Bar
* G2G Protein Bars
* RXBAR, Chocolate Sea Salt
And here’s someone going where I won’t dare with protein bars:
Wrapping Up
I hope that my article on protein bars without sucralose & other artificial sweeteners is useful to you, and I wish you well on your fitness journey.
-greg
Last update on 2022-12-01 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
