Extend Nutrition Bar Review

Author: Meaghan Murray

Extend Nutrition reached out to us a few weeks ago to see if we had interest in trying out their products. I’m always snacking on different bars so I figured, why not try these? They sent us a package with a variety of bars and “Drizzles.” Here’s my take:

Drizzles? Yes, Drizzles: tiny packages of delightful puffed rice cakes drizzled with sweet delicious-ness. I could eat these things all. damn. day. Are they good for you? Well, each bag only contains 130 calories and some fiber and protein. So, that’s a win. The Extend bars are also a relatively low calorie snack, ranging from 130-150 a pop. They come in several flavors: peanut butter, cookies and cream, chocolate and caramel… to name a few. The suggested use for bars in training is: eat any 1 serving of Extend Nutrition about 30–60 minutes before exercise. I’m an early morning runner, so I prefer not to eat much before I lace up. I used the bars for post-run and mid-day snacks. I can’t say that I felt satisfied for 6-9 hours (I’m mid-ultra training) but I do think they provide a nice baseline amount of energy to keep you happy between meals.

One (primarily irrelevant) issue I have with Extend Nutrition is the packaging. It looks straight up 90’s… every time I opened a bar I felt like I was unraveling an infomercial. All I’m saying is that you’re not going to feel cool pulling one of these out of your gym bag. Okay, I’m kind of kidding, they’re not that bad…

The only real downside to these bars, for me, was the plethora of ingredients. I try to stick with the least processed, most-pronounceable ingredients out there. I actually brought this concern up to the team who gave me the low-down. The bars have a longer ingredient list, primarily due to vitamin and mineral blends. That’s cool. However, they also use non-nutritive sweeteners in some products, like sucralose. I’m not here to debate the safety of sucralose and all those wanna-be sugars, I just prefer to stick to the real stuff, calories and all.

At the end of my running shoe reviews, I can usually suggest what type of runner the shoes would be suited for. Nutrition isn’t quite the same, so I’ll leave you with this: if you like snacks, you’ll probably like Extend Nutrition. And don’t ever say no to pack of Drizzles.