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Carbwell Bars for the Protein Conscious

This site contains information on many types of Zone perfect bars or similar lines of nutrition meal replacement diet bars.

Carbwell bars are a line of product manufactured by the Balance Company. This company started out with their "Original" line, which are bars that are truly balanced according to Zone guidelines described by Dr. Barry Sears in his book The Zone.

He advocates eating meals with 40% carbohydrate, 30% protein and 30% fat by calorie. He does NOT endorse any of the Balance Company lines of bars. He sells his own Sears Zone Nutrition bars. But many of us prefer to buy balanced bars in our local Wal-Mart for one-third of the price Dr. Sears' bars amounts (including shipping).

So Balance originally went after us as their market. However, they decided to branch out with bars that are healthier than candy bars but which are not precisely Zone-favorable.

Their Carbwell line is one of those. They've kept the carbohydrate content down to only 2 grams, which is not much out of a 50 gram bar.

I'm not sure precisely who they think their target market is. Atkins dieters? Maybe, though people don't want to eat any carbs at all. And Atkins used to have their own line of bars, though maybe that stopped after Dr. Atkins slipped on the ice, hit his head on the sidewalk and died. Besides, maybe Atkins bars are also very expensive. I think I saw some on display one time, and they cost at least $2 per bar.

Maybe they're targeting bodybuilders and weightlifters, since those folks are obsessed with protein to build muscle with. And of course they do have an unusually high need for protein, though probably most of them eat too much of it. And they don't eat enough nutritious carbs from fruits and vegetables.

But these bars have only 14 grams of protein, which is actually less than the amount of protein in the other, more Zone favorable bars.

So its main distinction is the great imbalance of protein over carbohydrate.

If you do overindulge in carbs at a meal, you can finish it off with one of these bars to add some protein -- if you don't have any meat, fish or dairy products available for that. The only two flavors are Chocolate Peanut Butter and Caramel N Chocolate.

I can't see much benefit in Zone dieters buying this kind of bar.

I will say that if you're hungry and this is all that's available to you, then you can feel safe eating it.

I know that every meal and snack is supposed to be in the Zone favorable composition, but this isn't always reality for those of us who sometimes get out of our comfort zones.

Sometimes you have to make do with what you have. And given a choice between eating protein only and carbohydrates only -- which will greatly increase my insulin -- I pick the protein.

I know that Dr. Sears points out that if you eat too much protein you can go into ketosis. I know from the one time I tried the Atkins diet that this takes several days of not eating any carbohydrates. So I feel safe eating only protein/fat foods in the short run. I will sometimes nibble on nuts on munch on a finger of string cheese without worrying about whether there's an apple to eat along with it.

So if you're hungry and have nothing else to eat but Carbwell bars, don't be afraid.