The sale of food bars which includes granola, diet, energy and protein bars, is increasing by leaps and bounds. This means that more people are now eating these food bars as a supplement to their diet and very often as a meal replacement. If you read the label and listen to the advertisements for all of these food bars, you may think that you are truly getting great benefits from their consumption.
However, to actually get full value from these bars, you must be eating bars made out of whole food, not synthetic products. Whole food bars give you the full vitamin, mineral, protein, carbohydrate, etc., complex that your body can easily utilize. If you use the synthetic versions, even though they may contain certain vitamins and minerals, you may actually be depleting your body of them through continual use. Keep in mind that the best made synthetics cannot duplicate what occurs in nature.
For example, scientists have yet to come up with a full replacement for vitamin B. It still, to this day, has not been duplicated. Only portions of it have been recreated and very often it is sold under the guise of vitamin B when in reality it is not complete. Even vitamin C is typically ascorbic acid while in nature vitamin C also has other vitamins and minerals associated with it to make a complete complex.
Food bars can be a great adjunct to your diet, but be sure you are eating the right bars to get their true value.
For more information, read the nutrition chapter in: Explosive Running Explosive Golf, Explosive Basketball Training, Womens Soccer: Using Science to Improve Speed. Also see Build a Better Athlete: What’s Wrong With American Sports and How to Fix It. A full chapter is devoted to nutrition and supplements.