Energy Bars to Upgrade Your Lifestyle

There you are, in front of a crowd of thousands cheering your name. You step up to the bar, get a firm grip—your body in perfect position. You are about to complete the lift of your life. Suddenly the cheering begins to fade from motivating background music to a horrendous, blaring noise that ruins your focus. You begin to realize the crowd cheering was, in fact, your alarm clock waking you up—and you’re late.

There you are, in front of a crowd of thousands cheering your name. You step up to the bar, get a firm grip—your body in perfect position. You are about to complete the lift of your life. Suddenly the cheering begins to fade from motivating background music to a horrendous, blaring noise that ruins your focus. You begin to realize the crowd cheering was, in fact, your alarm clock waking you up—and you’re late.

You rush out of the door, grabbing a granola bar from the counter and whatever quick-brew coffee you could muster together. You wish you had something better, but you need the jolt of caffeine to survive the day ahead of you.

Driving into work like a maniac, you balance the coffee cup in one hand while trying to unwrap your granola bar in the other. In your peripheral vision you see the person in front of you slam on their brakes. You follow suit, only to experience the uncomfortable sensation of hot coffee running down the front of your shirt. You spilled your coffee and dropped your granola bar on the floor. Your breakfast, your energy shot, your whole day is ruined.

This scenario is all too familiar for the working professional. There aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done, so you have to multi-task whenever possible. Driving, eating a granola bar, and drinking your coffee basically requires you to be a master juggler, which I think we can agree you are not.

Quantum Energy Squares are the newest proposed solution to this all-too-common problem.

A New Player in the Energy Bar Marketplace

Quantum Energy Squares are another addition to the “whole food” energy bar marketplace. With concerns about health, fitness, and wholesome ingredients on the rise, many brands have taken the approach of eliminating artificial sweeteners and flavors, leaving you with pronounceable, wholesome ingredients from real food sources. Eliminating added sugars and sugar alcohols, products in this category most often use dates as the sweetener of choice. Additionally, these energy squares are vegan, gluten, soy, and dairy-free as well as non-GMO.

If you are an active, working professional who is conscious of the types of food you put into your body and also looking for an energy boost, then these bars may be right up your alley.

What Are They?

Quantum Energy Squares, following the default of many whole-ingredient energy bars, contain much less protein than traditional protein bars. This is due to the addition of protein-rich foods, such as peanuts, that also contain other macronutrients. In order to properly balance the calories and other nutrients, protein naturally falls on the low end. That means these bars contain 7g of protein per bar, compared to the standard 20g of most protein bars, while calories remain the same at 210 calories per 50g bar.

Other ingredients include oats, dates, almonds, chia seeds, dark chocolate chips, and coffee beans.

The texture of the Quantum Energy Squares is a bit grainy, which makes sense for a bar made with a base of oats, and pleasantly less sticky than other bars that use dates as the sweetener.

I tried the Caffe Mocha Macchiato flavor, and you can certainly taste the coffee. While the bars are physically a little smaller than other brands, the bitterness of the coffee helped me feel satisfied. I enjoyed the taste overall. The bar is not too sweet, another plus for me, because over-sweetness can sometimes plague the energy bar market. If you aren’t a fan of coffee flavoring, another option is a dark chocolate cherry flavor.

The most notable difference of the Quantum Energy Squares is that these bars contain 100mg of caffeine, a little more than a cup of coffee. If you are looking for a quick breakfast on-the-go, and the added pick-me-up that a cup of coffee would provide, then these are a good choice for you.

The No-Crash Energy Measures Up

I tested these bars during an appointment-filled day. I had over seven hours of personal training client sessions, as well as administrative work and a few articles to finish up during my off-time. This was the kind of schedule—beginning the day at 5:30am and not getting home until close to 9:30pm—where I could use an energy boost.

As a regular caffeine user, I don’t consider myself very sensitive to it. I was skeptical that 100mg would be enough to give me the boost I needed, but I was pleasantly surprised. Shortly after consuming the energy square, I felt more awake, energetic, and focused on the things I needed to do. Additionally, I was pleased that I didn’t feel any crash toward the end of my day, when other caffeine-containing products would have me feeling ready to call it quits.

Overall, Quantum Energy Squares do a great job of providing wholesome nutrition, a pleasant and satiating experience, and the energy boost needed to help you reach your goals for the day. The only negative for me is the relatively low amount of protein when compared to other protein bars. However, I can easily see myself using this as a quick snack to help fulfill other nutritional needs during the day, and combining it with other sources of protein.