PowerBar Pria CarbSelect

[cjsmith]

I got a coupon for a free PowerBar Pria CarbSelect, so I tried it. My thoughts:

- Is "Pria" the feminine of "Prius"? If so, this pair fits many stereotypes about the sexes: the Pria is smaller and can't carry nearly as much, but tastes a whole lot better.*
- They're inventing even more excuses for carbs now. This thing has 2g "Impact Carbs", which is the remainder when you've taken the total carbs and subtracted off fiber and (get this) "sugar alcohol". Tellingly, there's a note on the wrapper cautioning diabetics that Impact Carbs aren't intended for YOU. I deduce that "Impact Carbs" are a lie marketing trick and "sugar alcohol" means "the manufacturer wanted a smaller Impact Carbs number".
- It doesn't taste like a protein bar, which is wonderful. However, it has an odd smell.
- At my local Safeway, it's $1.99 for this 110-calorie thing. I wonder how many Impact Carbs I'd get if I just ate two dollar bills.

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* I hope this will start several interesting arguments in the comments.

Comments

[tytso.livejournal.com]

Impact carbs is an Atkins Diet thing. The theory (whether or not you believe it) is that certain carbs cause an immediate rise in your blood sugar, which for people who have insulin resistance, they can't deal with as well, but when the insulin finally kicks in, you get a blood sugar crash, which causes you to be less effective, more irritable --- and may cause you to grab for the nearest candy bar to get your blood sugar back up, but then you over-compensate and then you get another blood sugar peak followed by a crash.

So the claim is that if sugar alcohols are less bad than raw sugar, because they don't cause the blood sugar spike as much. This is certainly true for myself, in terms of avoiding the sugar crash, and I'll eat a few Atkins bars (which I think taste better than the Pria Carb Select) when I need a snack, just for that reason. That being said, there are a lot of people who will tell you from experience that eating huge amounts of sugar alcohol will slow or stop weight loss, and that Real Food (tm) that are low-carb naturally *is* better for you (and easier on your wallet!) than these artificial candy-bars that are low in "impact carbs".

As far as whether women taste better than men, I've never had the urge or the opportunity to taste the latter, so I can't really do a fair comparison. :-P

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

AH - it's a little like "Glycemic Index", then. Thanks! (That bar sure tasted like it had a lot of carbs sweetness. I figured they had to be cheating somehow. Sounds like they only sorta were.)