USN Protein Flapjack – Double Chocolate

This oat based bar is fortified with Whey Protein Concentrate and held together with Golden Syrup. Its almost a perfect post work out protein and carbs blend but also a fairly good pre-sports snack. Fast release carbs from Golden Syrup and Glocose, Slow release carbs from the oats a hit of protein with a slug of fat to slow the whole package down but. Yes there is always a but, this carb-laden-fat-heavy protein snack comes with a hefty calorific price tag.

First Impressions

This actually looks like a chocolate chip flapjack, it smells like a chocolate chip flapjack and guess what ?, it tastes like a chocolate chip flapjack. You can smell the chocolate chips, even though they are reduced fat cocoa solids they smell sooo good. You can smell the golden syrupy sweetness and just a hint of savoury oats.

The first bite reveals a stronger sugary flavour, and it feels a little more firmer and moist than a flapjack. I generally prefer a drier firmer flapjack with a little crunch but its still very nice. I sampled a cherry flapjack recently which were sticky and gooey as hell, not good at all but the consistency of this seems good.

It doesn’t feel greasy, or overly sugary, which is a surprising given its humongous kcal numbers.

Allergen Warnings
The list of Allergen warnings is equally as huge as the calorie count. It includes Milk, Soya, Wheat, Barley, Eggs, Peanuts, Tree Nuts, Sulphur Dioxide and the kitchen sink. Maybe I made up the last bit, but that’s a beastly list of allergens.

Sports Flapjack

I think this would be good for cyclists, runners and endurance athletes for example, its almost a trail mix or similar in a bar. It could also work as a mass-gainer when you want to pack in the calories.

The latest studies show that around 40-45g of carbs OR around 20-24g of protein are sufficient to break your body out of catabolism after intense exercise/sporting activity. Science also shows that a little fat slows down digestion and enhances satiety. The macro-nutrition content of this flapjack with 36g Carbs (slow and fast release), 12g protein and 17g fat is actually quite good post work out.

The calorie count in my opinion is a little high to consumed a quick protein hit or as a snack. There are 355kcal in the 80g bar with only 12g protein, which even puts 321kcal of the BSN Rocky Road Bar to shame, but even that has 30g protein by way of redemption.

USN seem to have a habit of producing protein bars which again in my opinion seem a little light on the protein, many of them very tasty but maybe its time I set a lower-limit to what qualifies as a protein bar and what doesn’t. Either way this bar absolutely has a place and fills a niche for many people.