What is the best energy bar for sports ?

The market for sports energy bars has been growing steadily for years. There has been a strong transformation in the supply of ultra-processed products to much healthier products. The consumer is indeed more and more demanding about the quality of their daily diet, so they are also necessarily demanding for their sports nutrition. Do you know what is the best energy bar for sports?

What is an energy bar?

Made up of cereals, dried fruits, seeds, spices and different types of carbohydrates… An energy bar or dietetic exercise bar, more commonly called a “cereal bar”, is rich in carbohydrates, lipids and proteins to provide calories, and therefore energy, to athletes during exercise or as a snack for those who have a very active life. Its packaging makes it easily transportable for consumption on the go or in action.

The energy bar has a good reputation, since it is consumed by professional or amateur athletes to optimize their performance, but also by people who want to eat healthy to fill a small gap. It is even part of the recommended snacks for children rather than giving them an industrial chocolate bar full of sugars and fats.

In short, the energy bar is the good student of foods classified in the “sweet grocery” category, provided that its components are carefully chosen (100% natural), well-dosed, without too much refined sugars (sucrose, glucose, synthetic fructose) and lipids and especially without preservatives, colorings and other synthetic flavors.

Do not confuse energy bars with protein bars (or recovery bars) and meal replacement slimming bars. The former, as their name suggests, contain a lot of protein. Protein helps build or rebuild muscle damaged during exercise. We are talking more about micro-lesions of the muscle fiber that must be repaired. On the other hand, slimming bars aim to fill the stomach with the minimum possible carbohydrates.

When to consume an energy bar for sport ?

Food allows the human body to build up glycogen stores to provide energy to organs and muscles. The more intense the activity, the more the body will consume these stores, it burns calories. This is why it is strongly recommended to consume suitable nutrition products, such as energy bars, during or after training or in competition.

The human body does not like imbalances and deficiencies - the famous energy slump or hunger pangs - which is why moderate and regular intake is recommended during exercise. One bite every 15 to 20 minutes during a trail for example, or one bar per hour is a good frequency. Don't forget to always drink a little water right after to remove the sweet taste in the mouth and facilitate digestion.

You should never wait until you are hungry or thirsty, and even less until your legs are like cotton wool, to eat during exercise. It's too late! Too much energy intake at a time when the body is lacking can even cause reactive hypoglycemia. This is also known as the "yo-yo" effect.

 

It usually occurs after an excessive intake of sugars, leading to a sudden increase in blood sugar. In response to this hyperglyceamia, the body triggers an excessive insulin spike (a hypoglycemic hormone that allows glucose to be stored in cells) which causes the sugar level to drop, sometimes too significantly.

As a general rule, a bar provides less energy, vitamins and minerals than a well-dosed energy drink, which should remain the number one source of carbohydrates during your workout. However, the bar has the advantage of providing nourishment, which is important in endurance sports.

What sports are covered by energy bars?

There are of course favorite sports where consuming an energy bar makes perfect sense. These are endurance sports where it is necessary to eat because the practice lasts for hours or even days. This is the case for trail and ultra trail with races like the UTMB, the TOR des géants or the Grand raid de la Réunion where you need energy that is released over time. We could also mention cycling, mountain biking, hiking, golf, tennis... All these sports where it is possible to chew.

It is much less practical for fast running races like the half marathon and the marathon because it is very complicated to chew and swallow while running. These practices favor energy gels, energy compotes, or drinks because they are more liquid and therefore easy to swallow while running.

How long does it take to feel the effects of a sports energy bar ?

While an energy gel or energy compote, which are very fluid, pass into the bloodstream within 5 minutes of ingestion, it takes a good twenty minutes minimum for a solid food such as an energy bar to take effect and give you a boost of energy during exercise.

Mulebar bars contain on average 140kcal for a weight of 40g. You should not wait until you are hungry to eat one.

What is the best energy bar for sports?

The Mulebar brand, created in 2008, offers a range of 10 vegan energy bars (5 of which are also labeled organic) which have revolutionized a market dominated by pharmaceutical laboratories offering products which are certainly effective (this is not the most complicated) but not always natural and above all without any flavor or pleasant texture to chew during exercise.

The DNA of the Mulebar brand is to offer 100% natural products, with premium ingredients with a soft texture, easy to chew and very original flavors. How many athletes tell us at trade shows or on social networks that a Mulebar bar is a comfort during the effort, a reward for each goal achieved. Having fun is the most important thing in a race because when the body gives up, it is the mind that takes over to get to the finish line.

Mulebar : a unique manufacturing process !

Mulebar is one of the rare sports nutrition brands to cook its bars while the vast majority of bar brands (Clif bar, Baouw, etc.) make raw bars by extrusion. It's certainly much cheaper! Cooking gives an unrivaled softness because the ingredients melt and mix together. The bar is therefore not at all brittle. How many times have you found a bag of crumbled bars at the bottom of your bag?

This is also why Mulebar bars were manufactured in the United Kingdom, the country of the Energy bar until 2023. When we bought the brand in 2015 after distributing it in France for 6 years, my partner Denis Gargaud-Chanut and I looked for a French factory. Unfortunately, none were equipped with a cooking tunnel. The investment of more than 100,000 euros was not justified given our small production volumes. We therefore preferred to keep our real difference, our competitive advantage rather than give in to the sirens of the locavore. The English factory was only 600 km from Paris when many brands come from the United States or Canada by boat or plane.

The real revolution comes at the end of 2023 when a French manufacturer offers to manufacture the range of bars with a unique process in France that even improves the softness and texture of the bars. Our dream for a long time because Brexit and then hyperinflation in the UK have caused us a lot of worries. Mulebar energy bars are now produced in France!

Against ultra transformation!

When choosing a food, the easiest thing is to look at the list of ingredients. If there are any strange terms, then run away!

Some brands add vitamins or proteins in addition to natural ingredients when said vitamins or proteins are already present in these foods. This is an interesting marketing method that pleases some nutritionists who only look at the labels. Many of these vitamins must be taken as a cure to have a beneficial effect on our body, it is not in a bar of a few dozen grams taken at a few times in the year that it will change anything.

The low number of ingredients in our recipes and the absence of preservatives, colorants and other synthetic fragrances make our bars easy to digest even by the most sensitive people. Normal, it's 100% natural and that's also our pride! Each product sheet on our website details the composition of each bar (brown rice syrup, fruits, proteins, cereals, almonds, oats, vitamins, rapeseed oil, etc.)

All our bars also have a very good rating on the Yuka app.

Discover our 10 original recipes?

Mulebar was a pioneer in the sports bar market by inventing original recipes and unique fruit and seed combinations in a sports diet market dominated by bars with simple or even basic recipes with vanilla, chocolate and banana.

We were the first brand to offer so much choice with these subtle tastes and flavors. A real novelty at the time and at the same price as other sports diet bars.

Since then we have been copied, it is the price of success which makes us say that already in 2008, the idea and the positioning of quality, pleasure, choice and naturalness were good!

Here are our current 10 bar recipes:

• Apricot nut bar - organic and vegan
• Mango Cashew Bar - Organic and Vegan
• Orange chocolate bar - organic and vegan
• Apple cinnamon raisin bar - organic and vegan
• Lemon ginger bar - organic and vegan
• Pineapple Coconut Goji Berry Bar - Vegan
• Raspberry blackcurrant cranberry bar - vegan
• Peanut raspberry bar - vegan
• Strawberry Almond Protein Bar - Vegan
• Chocolate protein bar - vegan
  
  

If all this has not convinced you, I invite you to consult the opinions on the forums, social networks or on our site where you will see, from the mouths of our customers, to what extent our bars are by far the best on the market with an average price.

If you compete, you need to discover our energy gels, our energy compotes and our Mulebar drinks (for exercise and hydration), they are also the best in the world of course!

Mulebar Sports Nutrition Product Information:

Price: €2.50 incl. VAT for a 40g energy bar

Available in packs of 4 or boxes of 15 with a 10% discount

Subscribe to the Mulebar newsletter to receive a promo code

Delivery within 4 to 5 working days and free delivery costs from 100€ of purchase in Europe

No preservatives, no colorants, no palm oil, vegan.

Five of our energy bars are organic. They contain gluten.

Mulebar energy bars are made in France.