Home-made Quest-like protein bar

[Dominique]

I decided to make my own protein bar, inspired by the Quest bars. Here you can see three different bars (from left to right): Snickers (only included it so you can see how bad it is!), Quest Peanut Butter Supreme and my own:

I used the following three ingredients: unflavored whey protein, peanut butter and isomalto-oligosaccharide (+ a little bit of water). They were all sourced from the same company (MyProtein). The exact product names were: Impact Native Whey 95, Peanut Butter, VitaFiber™.

I used a spreadsheet to experiment with various mixes, aiming at something similar to Quest in terms of calories, protein and fiber. My first experiment was not particularly successful (partly because I put too much water to dissolve the VitaFiber), but the second one worked really well. The mix was: 45 grams of whey protein powder, 40 grams of peanut butter and 40 grams of VitaFiber:

This gave me a total of 125 grams (actually, 132 grams with water), which was more or less the equivalent of two Quest bars (which are 60 grams per bar).

My home-made bars have slightly more calories than Quest (388 cal. per 100 g, vs. 367 for Quest), clearly more protein (43 grams, vs. 33 for Quest), a little bit more fiber (32 grams, vs. 28 for Quest) and far less salt (0.10 grams, vs. 1.37 for Quest). Fat and carbs were more or less identical.

I may be partial, but my home-made bar tasted better . Consistency was better too: not as hard, and did not stick to my teeth like the Quest bar.

Actual prices I’ve paid for the ingredients (MyProtein always seems to have promotional deals): Whey 95: €37.06 per bag of 2.5 kg, Peanut butter: €4.37 per tub of 1.0 g, VitaFiber: €8.95 per bag of 1.0 kg. For my 125 grams of home-made bars (a little bit more than two Quest bars), this works out at €1.21. I paid €23.90 for a box of 12 Quest bars (€1.99 per bar). My home-made bars (€0.60 per bar) are therefore more than three times less expensive than Quest bars.

Oh, and Snickers is 485 cal. per 100 grams, with only 8.6 grams of protein. Carbs are 60.2 grams, of which 50.8 grams are sugar (ouch!). No mention of fiber, probably because there’s hardly any.

[OCDOC]

Amazing!..how much water exactly? And do they bake or just cut them up?

BTW 4 net carbs per 100 g portion will thrill the LC kooks 🙂  R

[SunsetRunner]

      You guys are making me feel bad with all your talk about health and fitness when the only thing i do is wear my fitbit (occasionally) how do you guys do it?

[Dominique]

@OCDOC: I put just enough water so as to obtain a syrup-like mix. I vigourously whipped it as I heated it up (in a saucepan) so as to prevent it from solidifying. I then poured the syrup in a plastic bowl and mixed it with the other ingredients (whey powder, peanut butter) using a wooden spoon. I obtained a sort of dough similar in consistency to sugar crust pastry. You can shape it into a sheet of the desired thickness. Mine was thicker than the original Quest bar, as you can see from the photo. In my next experiment, I may try to use a rolling pin to make it thinner. No baking is involved. I just put it in the refrigerator for a couple of hours to let it harden a bit. There are tons of videos on YouTube on that subject. I watched a few and borrowed here and there the parts that made sense to me. I’ll try to take some more pictures when I make my second batch. Now I found the right mix (with peanut butter), I’ll double the quantities (for a total of 250 grams instead of 125). Where Quest still wins is variety: I counted no less than 18 different flavors. However, my home-made bars have a real ingredient: peanut butter, Constrast that with the list of ingredients of their "strawberry cheesecake" bar: "Protein Blend (Milk Protein Isolate, Whey Protein Isolate), Soluble Corn Fiber (Prebiotic Fiber), Almonds, Water, Erythritol, Natural Flavors, Dried Strawberries, Palm Oil, Sea Salt, Steviol Glycosides (Stevia)."

[Dominique]

@SunsetRunner: to a large extent, you are what you eat. One thing leads to the other: when the Fitbit bug hit me (three years ago), I focused primarily on exercising. Now I pay more attention to nutrition. Protein bars (or protein shakes) are not meant to replace "real" food: it’s just a convenient way to make sure you get enough protein during your day, or to have a healthy snack if you feel hungry.

[Paradise555]

What is your recipe?

[Dominique]

---

@Paradise555 wrote:

What is your recipe?

---

@Paradise555: mix the ingredients in the proportions indicated above in a bowl, then shape in a sheet of desired thickness, put in the fridge for a couple of hours and cut into the dimensions of your choice. I’ll add a few photos later on today, when I make the next batch.

[AlexanderPetrex]

Hello Everyone,

While doing research about protein bar I came across this industry.

I am doing my project in Pune university. 

I would like to share some numbers about the protein bar market.

There is a research company called Verified Market Research, According to them - Global Protein Bar Market was valued at USD 1.18 Billion in 2018 and is projected to reach USD 1.9 Billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 6.23% from 2019 to 2026. 

What do you think about this research report? 

Please let me know as I am doing some survey about protein bar

[WestLinn]

I am not surprised considering the bars in the stores are taking over large spaces in stores now a days. I have one for breakfast every morning and they aren’t particularly cheap.