Product Review & Giveaway: GoMacro Thrive Bars

New Thrive Bars by GoMacro

I have a very sweet yoga student who comes to class somewhat irregularly, but when he does come, he often brings me a snack. He's brought me several great bars recently, and even a bag of that delicious curry popcorn from Trader Joes. He was the one who introduced me to the bars by GoMacro. He brought me one to class, and I loved it! The original GoMacro bars come in a bunch of flavors - my favorite flavors are always the ones with chocolate. Those bars run from 240-290 calories a bar, with anywhere from 4-12 grams of protein.

Recently GoMacro reached out to me and offered me the opportunity to review their newest offering - a line of "superfood seeds & nuts" bars based with less-processed ingredients called Thrive Bars. All of these bars are Vegan, Organic, Non-GMO, and Gluten-free. The base of all six flavors is a blend of organic sprouted flax seeds, hemp seeds, and puffed quinoa - sweetened with organic brown rice syrup and organic coconut sugar. They each also have organic sprouted brown rice protein. From that starting point, each bar has a different range of ingredients depending on the flavor. The ingredients really are pretty impressive - organic, wholesome, plain english. I really like that . The wrappers have a tag line on them that says "ingredients grown not made," which seems completely accurate. I don't mind an occasional bar full of processed soy protein, but it's nice to have some tasty less-processed options around. These bars are all 190 calories, and depending on the flavor, have anywhere from 5-8 grams of protein per bar.

all those bars lined up in their wrappers made me think of a slumber party.

sleep tight! 

My 3 Favorite Flavors

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip - Any time a bar comes in chocolate peanut butter flavor, that is always going to be my favorite! This bar is extra peanutty with big chocolate chips, and didn't let me down. I also appreciated the cocoa powder in the base, which gives the bar an extra level of chocolatey-ness, especially for such a wholesome and whole-foods bar.

Chocolate Nuts and Sea Salt - This bar has some nice nutty chunks in it, which give a good crunch, along with full-size chocolate chips, and a bright touch to the flavor from the salt. 

Caramel Coconut - This flavor surprised me, I wouldn't have expected to like it as much as I did since it doesn't even have chocolate in it (ha ha). In both flavor and texture, it's very coconutty! All of these bars are chewy and substantial, but I especially loved the texture of this bar.

*I was also happy to see that GoMacro is on the FEP Approved Chocolate list - meaning that their chocolate sources don't use childhood slave labor. yes!

Almond Apricot - I love apricots, but I felt like the apricot flavor didn't come through much in this bar. I felt like I was mostly tasting the base ingredients. Perhaps if I wasn't expecting or hoping for more apricot-ness, I wouldn't have noticed. There are definitely lots of almonds though, and this bar has a good nutty crunch to it. 

Ginger Lemon - This bar was another one that really surprised me - the nice ginger flavor really comes through right away - both in aroma and flavor. This bar is more chewy than crunchy, which I enjoyed. The lemony hit is not upfront or overwhelming at all, but it's there. I really liked this flavor more than I expected to, since I usually think of myself as a chocolate+peanut butter gal! 

Blueberry Lavender - This was probably my least favorite of the three, but I could have predicted that from the get-go since I am not really a fan of lavender in my food. That said, I wished the blueberry flavor presence was stronger, and honestly I didn't even pick up that much on the lavender. 

You can have sack races with your thrive bar friends!

such beautiful packaging!

Here is something else that I would really like to salute GoMacro for: gorgeous, aesthetically pleasing, environmentally-friendly packaging. This case of twelve bars came in such a lovely box of unbleached cardboard, with their elegant embossed graphics on it. So beautiful and such a minimal waste. I frequently receive products for review and often the shipping packaging is overflowing with plastic and styrofoam and layers upon layers of packaging. This was such a pretty and sensible packaging presentation, I was so impressed.

** Giveaway! ** 

Guess what else is impressive? In addition to sending me a case of Thrive Bars to review, GoMacro is happy to offer a case of assorted flavors to one lucky blog reader (US only). To enter, please leave a comment on this post and tell me what your favorite bar is so far. Also, check out GoMacro on Facebook and on Instagram.

Guess what else!! Even if you don't win, GoMacro has a 30% coupon code good for their Thrive bars if you'd like to give them a try. The code will work once per customer and is Thrive30 - use it at their site, GoMacro.com