REVIEW: CLIF Crunchy Peanut Butter Energy Bar

Time for this blog's first-ever CLIF Bar review! Yayyyyy! I'm so excited!!! This is honestly my first time even EATING a full-sized CLIF Bar, let alone reviewing one, so hopefully it's an enjoyable bar. I'd like to start taste-testing and reviewing CLIF Bars more often, especially since they have a LOT of mouthwatering flavors: Banana Nut Bread, Carrot Cake, Maple Nut, Oatmeal Raisin Walnut, Chocolate Chip, White Chocolate Macadamia... ALL of these sound VERY good, but of course the first CLIF bar I get is the average ol' Crunchy Peanut Butter... Oh well. Peanut Butter-flavored products have disappointed me in the past, but there've also been pleasant surprises as well. So hopefully this CLIF Bar falls into the latter category. One 2.4 oz. bar costs around $1.27.

A 68g bar contains 240 calories, 60 of them being from fat, 6g of total fat, 1g of saturated fat, 0g of trans fat, 0mg of cholesterol, 240mg of sodium, 230mg of potassium, 40g of total carbohydrates, 4g of dietary fiber, 2g of insoluble fiber, 21g of sugar, and 11g of protein. Also contains many different daily needed values of 23 vitamins and minerals.

This bar had the musk of peanut butter emanating from it as I removed it from its wrapper. I was expecting to see a perfect square-shaped bar, but was instead greeted by some sort of tan, shapeless, porous BLOB. The formless mass was studded with plenty of peanut pieces and soy crisps to create a very bumpy texture. This bar was very sticky, and was also very thick and dense, making it even a challenge just to tear the thing in half. Thankfully, I powered through. Haha. Looks like I really NEED these CLIF Bars... Gotta get me strong! Like BULL.

My first bite of this bar felt soft and chewy, as did the rest. The chewy part is a bit weird, considering this is CRUNCHY Peanut Butter. And this isn't soft in a "melt-in-your-mouth" sort of way. It's more soft in a gummy, pliable type of way. Like caramel. Doesn't melt away in your mouth, but can flatten and thin out and stretch every which way. Each bite of this bar had a cool combination of crispy and chewy textures, the former coming from the soy crisps dispersed throughout the bar. The plentiful amount of peanuts added their swell chewiness and crunchiness to the bar as well. But other than texturally wise, this bar was NOT very impressive. This was supposed to be a peanut butter bar, and while I COULD taste the sweet peanutiness, the taste was way more mild than I would've expected. This could've been A LOT sweeter for a peanut butter bar. Heck! It could've been a lot nuttier, even- doesn't even have to just sweeter. The taste was just so... booooring. The whole bar was pretty boring, with the same mild taste bite after bite. And that gets old very quickly with such a big bar. It was just... blah. It wasn't inedible, but it was far from special by any means.

Anyway, this CLIF Bar fell pretty flat by my standards. It was just very monotonous, and not very good. I mean, my hopes and dreams of  reviewing CLIF products aren't crushed because of this bar- I KNOW there are better and tastier flavors out there -but this one just wasn't good and I wouldn't recommend it unless you have a strict PB craving. But even so, there are other bars out there that do the flavor and creaminess of the spread much more justice than this one. I honestly made a trade with my teacher to obtain this bar, so I didn't even spend money on this thing, but even then it really wasn't worth it. Won't catch me buying this bar.
I'd give CLIF's Crunch Peanut Butter Energy Bar a 4/10.

Need other views from those who chewed? Crazy Food Dude and The Snackpot also have this reviewed.

What flavors of CLIF are YOUR favorites? Post your thoughts down in the comments below!

Till' then, this has been RiRi ri-porting!