20 July 2014

Bounce - Natural Energy Ball (Protein & Defence) [review by @Nli10]

While out at the Glastonbury Festival I consumed a lot of new things I'd picked up at Holland & Barrettes - one pair of things was these 'natural energy balls'.

I'd not really expected them to be more than just a cereal bar in a round shape.


The round shape didn't really last all the way to the festival though - these looked more like burgers when I opened them.


And this first one looked suspiciously like haggis! I guess that being made of oats and such does have it's similarities to this but there is no meat in here.  It's flavour was advertised as spirulina and ginseng, but I couldn't really tell you whether the flavour was accurate.  The taste was definitely a nice one, and after a long day I tried the first of these and was pleasantly surprised.  The texture was firm but not too sticky and it didn't have that papery taste that most things that claim to have protein in them do.  I guess that being mostly oats, nuts and seeds helped that.  As this was the one of the two i'd been dreading I felt more confident about the remaining flavour.


This one didn't get eaten while outside, but at my first day back at work as kind of a recovery snack.


Again it was a little flat, but this time it was a lot more like a giant blob of peanut butter with a few extra nuts on the outside.  I found the texture to be far too sticky for my liking and it was also quite dry.  I think that had I eaten this outside I'd have found the energy hit to be welcome but would have needed a big drink afterwards.  As it was - at work I had to eat it over two sittings!

The peanut flavour was faithful and it was generally OK, but I'd much rather have had a second of the original defence flavour and wouldn't buy the second again.  If you were a big fan of toffees and other really chewy items AND love peanuts then go for it, but I just found it to be a bit much.

Maybe the goal for the first (fibre & defence) just lent itself more naturally to the kind of snack I enjoy than the protein of the second.

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