
19. Protein Bars
Many protein bars contain high amounts of added sugar and use unhealthy sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup. It adds excess fructose to your diet and can increase your risk of fatty liver, obesity, and diabetes when consumed in high amounts. Since bars are considered processed food, I would not recommend them as a simple solution. If you need to use a protein bar, make sure you look at the label. Some bars have only a couple of ingredients, and those are the ones you want to stick with. Be warned – sometimes these can be expensive for what you get.
If you’re talking about a bar made out of whole foods with minimal added sugar, then yes, you can have one every day. Like many processed foods, packaged protein bars are often packed with various sugar forms (beet syrup, brown rice syrup, cane syrup), excess fats (palm kernel oil, sunflower oil), artificial colors, and flavors. Plus, protein bars sometimes contain gas-causing compounds like sucralose (a sugar substitute) and chicory root (a fiber additive). There are lots of different recipes online, and the beauty of making them at home is you can make several flavors at once and try different combinations of ingredients.