Bibrave Product Review: Generation UCAN Bars
October 2, 2016 Leave a comment
Disclaimer: I received a sample box of UCAN Snack bars from Generation UCAN as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out www.bibrave.com to review, find and write race reviews.
Nutrition and fuel is always something we as runners fight with. We’re always looking for something specific and everyone’s different with flavors, palates, textures, you name it. No one likes buying a whole lot of one thing because of the fear of what’ll happen if you don’t like/tolerate/can’t stand what you bought.
I was given the chance to try Generation UCAN’s snack bars and ended up with Chocolate, Cinnamon and Peach
High profile runners (think MEB) have been using Generation UCAN for sometime and people have been fan of these for a number of reasons.
The snack bars are meant to curve cravings, slowly release sugar into the body instead of quick bursts and help maintain energy. Me personally, I’ve been across the board with what to use while running. I’ve done Paydays, gels, Stingers, you name it, so UCAN snack bars seemed appealing. Part of how UCAN Snack Bars work is they have a super starch that is meant to help with sustained energy and sugar levels throughout the work out. Instead of eating 200-250 calories of your favorite candy (Paydays or Reece’s, this is what you get out of the UCAN Bar (all stats are per bar)
Calories: 170-190
SuperStarch: 10-15 grams
Sugar: 5-6 grams
Fiber: 4-5 grams
Protein 5-6 g
When some of the other nutritional bars are up on sugar and not a lot of fiber and with no super starch, this looks pretty good!
So far, I’ve eaten myself out of the chocolate and cinnamon bars. Wrappers are appealing to the eye, the bars are fairly simple. Other flavors include peanut butter chocolate, coffee and peach
So far, I’m a fan of the chocolate. It runs sweet, but I tend to enjoy sweet things more. I tried this for my last half marathon 2 weeks ago. I ate about half the UCAN snack bar before hand and saved the rest for afterwards. I felt like half a bar lasted about 6 miles for me, but then again, I could have eaten it too close to the start. I didn’t think to bring any on the run with me. I didn’t have texture issues with the chocolate one while eating it. It can be a bit heavy on the flavor side though to some. When I went back to eat the rest of the bar post race, it was partially melted, so these bars don’t necessarily handle heat well.
I’ve also thrown these in my pocket while at work, since I’m not always guaranteed lunch at work (shocker). During one twelve hour shift, I tried one of the cinnamon bars. I wasn’t as much of a fan of the cinnamon. Part of it had to do with what I thought was too much cinnamon in it. When I first tried it, the first thing I thought was it would be perfect for Christmas or Thanksgiving holidays. I couldn’t eat the entire thing in one sitting because there was too much cinnamon in it. I also thought the cinnamon bar had a texture that was slightly off.
Overall, here’s my thoughts on UCAN. Food reviews in general are difficult because everyone is different with how they review them and what their criteria are for liking or not liking.
- super starches work!
- UCAN has good flavors, I just think things need to be tweaked a bit to get the right amount of flavor/taste in each bar
- Personally, I use before or after a run, not during (don’t think they travel well during runs)
- Low sugar, good amount of protein and fiber
We’ll be chatting it up between pros, bib rave and UCAN on October 11, 2016 at 9 pm EST/6 pm CST, so please join us! In the mean time, go shopping and enjoy 15% off with BIBRAVE
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