I Reviewed the PureFit Protein Bar for Taste, Protein, and Cost

I

purefit protein bar wrapper

My goal is to find the best vegan protein bar there is.

To do that, I bought and tested over 20 plant-based protein bars. I’ll continue to add some over time.

PureFit’s Protein Bar was one name that kept coming up in forums, so I wanted to include it in my testing.

This review is split into the 3 aspects that I tested all bars for: Protein content, taste, and cost.

How Much Protein is in a PureFit Bar?

The most important part of a protein bar to me is the protein content.

This can be calculated and compared for each bar with no bias.

In a PureFit protein bar there is:

  • 230 calories
  • 18 grams of protein
  • 25 grams of carbohydrates
  • 17 grams of sugar
  • 1 gram of fiber

That’s quite a bit of sugar, but good amount of protein as well. Protein accounts for 31.3% of the total calories.

I created a simple formula to scale the protein content percentage to a score out of 10 for all bars. PureFit scores a 7/10, which works out to be average for a vegan protein bar (the scores are not evenly distributed).

Ingredients

A quick look at the ingredients list clearly shows where the sugar is coming from. There’s a lot of syrup and sugar in the main ingredients:

Brown rice syrup, soy protein isolate, beet syrup, semi-sweet chocolate chips (sugar, chocolate, butter soy lecithin, vanilla extract), soy crisps (soy protein isolate, tapioca starch salt), peanuts, sunflower oil, peanuts flour, natural flavors, sea salt, soy lecithin.

I think those are fairly good ingredients, I’d personally just like to see less sugar.

How Do PureFit Protein Bars Taste?

On the box I ordered (peanut butter chocolate chip) it says the bars “tastes like cookie dough.”

That’s a bold claim.

But when you open the bar up, it actually kind of looks like chocolate chip cookie dough:

purefit bar inside full

When you break it open, it seems to have quite a soft, doughy texture:

purefit protein bar inside split

Overall, they taste really good, it didn’t take me long to go through the box.

The flavor is good, actually pretty similar to cookie dough, and there’s a nice bit of crunch.

My only issue was that there’s a bit of a chalky paste after each bite that’s tough to get down (think of a peanut butter and protein powder mix stuck on the top of your mouth.

I gave it a taste score of 8 out of 10. Of course this is subjective, but the main takeaway is that it’s easy to eat and fairly enjoyable.

Full Flavor List

Again, I did only order one flavor to test, but there are others as well:

  • Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip
  • Peanut Butter Crunch
  • Chocolate Brownie
  • Berry Almond Crunch
  • Peanut Butter Toffee Crunch
  • Almond Crunch

How Does the Cost of PureFit Bars Compare to Others?

You don’t have many buying options for PureFit.

You can buy them on the PureFit website, or the easiest retail option for most is probably ordering through iHerb (which is what I ended up doing).

A box works out to about $2 per bar, which is about as good as it gets for a vegan protein bar.

Again, I have a simple formula to scale the price per 10 grams of protein to a score out of 10 (where higher means cheaper), and PureFit gets a 9 out of 10.

So, Is PureFit the Best Vegan Protein Bar?

Sadly, it’s not the best overall, but it’s quite a good bar compared to all the other ones I tested.

It scores a 24 out of 30 overall, mainly held back by the protein content not being quite as high as it could be.

Only a handful of bars that I’ve tested beat that score.

PureFit Protein Bar Alternatives

While I think it’s fine to give PureFit bars a try, here are a few more brands that I’ve tested that I rate even higher and you may want to consider:

  • Simply – The Simply bar is my #1 overall protein bar when you add together the 3 categories. It’s protein content is significantly better, while the taste and cost are similar to PureFit. My full breakdown is in my Simply protein bar review.
  • No Cow – I rated the taste and cost of No Cow bars the same as PureFit (has a similar texture too), but their protein content is much better. The one potential downside is that they contain palm oil, which is controversial among vegans. If you’re interested, here’s my No Cow vegan protein bar review.

About the author

Dale Cudmore

Your friendly neighborhood vegan from Toronto. I've spent over 6 years as a freelance nutrition writer and researcher. During this time, I've tested over 50 vegan protein powders, and over 100 other types of vegan supplements.