Food Review: Boomi Bars

Eating mainly a whole foods diet can be very time consuming. I am alway on the lookout for convenience foods that are healthy, something I can grab and keep in my bag or my car.

When the baby carrots and apples get old, I reach for a bar. I am very picky about my nutritional bars or my cereal bars, and not many make the cut. I don't believe in soy isolates, so that brings my list way down. I look for low sugars (unless all the sugars come from dried fruit, and then I sometimes make an exception). And, I have to avoid cashews, pistachios and peanuts due to my son's food allergies. At this point, you may be wondering why I bother at all.

Enter Boomi Bars "Perfect Pumpkin" flavor. Do they make the cut? Oh yes, but if I am being super-picky, they aren't perfect.

The ingredients are pumpkin seeds, honey, dates, raisins, apricots, crisped rice, puffed amaranth and salt. Sounds good so far, and with only 3 grams of sugar I was thrilled. But believe it or not, they still taste very sweet to me.

I also wonder about the high carbohydrate content -- 23 grams. How can that be, with all of the good proteins and fats? Not sure where the carbs are coming from, but it makes me think there is a lot more honey than it may seem with the lower sugars.

My research also tells me that when a grain is processed into a "crisped" or "puffed" version, that it loses most of the nutrition, good fats and amino acids. So the rice and amaranth in these bars are basically filler.

All in all though, I love these bars for their mostly high quality standards, and for the "trail mix in a bar" feel.

Have you tried Boomi Bars? Do you like them? Do you have any other favorite bars you can recommend?