Your Protein Opinion

Protein Review - MusclePharm Combat Crunch (Cookies 'N' Cream)

MusclePharm's combat crunch bars are marketed as having a unique baking process which supposedly means that the inside tastes like a 'soft batch cookie' (their words exactly). But as always, we'll see for ourselves how true that is.

Taste - 7/10

Combat crunch bars, as usual, deliver well on the taste front and definitely tasted more like an actual chocolate bar rather than a chewy, whey-textured protein bar. The outside chocolate coating really comes through and is drizzled with a white sauce (which is more more aesthetics than taste). However, whilst it tasted good (great even), I would not be able to tell you the flavour as it just tasted of chocolate and whey. It could have been any of the musclepharm combat crunch bars like the chocolate chip cookie dough flavour or indeed, any of the similar protein bars like the grenade carb killa's. Perhaps if I tried some of their more unique flavours will I notice a significant deviation (like the cinnamon bun flavour, which I will review in the future).

Macros - 7/10

The macros for this bar are fairly standard with nothing out of the ordinary for a ~200 calorie protein bar. This bar specifically has 210 calories with 20 grams of protein giving you 10.50 calories per gram of protein along with a healthy amount of fibre. Whilst the ingredients list is perhaps longer than some other bars, that is due to it having more components and there doesn't seem to be any ingredients that should outright cause alarm.

Texture - 8/10

As with the taste, combat crunch bars all have a similar texture with a great contrast of soft chewiness from the whey centre, bursts of sweetness from the cookie pieces, a smooth chocolate coating and then finished with a decent crunch from the 'crispies' within the chocolate layer. Surprisingly, the centre did seem to be softer and more malleable than other similar bars so perhaps their baking technique does make a difference, but, it isn't a hugely critical change. Nonetheless, it does round off the trio of textures quite well.

Cost - 6/10

I picked a box of 12 up for £23 so each bar worked out to be around £1.92 (~€2.19) which is a fairly standard price for a box of protein bars in the UK so it was neither cheap nor expensive. But, as with most bars, there's constantly special offers knocking about like buy one get one half price etc.

Bonus - 2 Point

The bonus points come in more to do how well balanced the bar is with a combination of contrasting textures, along with a great taste which importantly lacks the sickly sweetness that some other bars have.

Total Score - 30 Points

Overall, as I have found with most of the combat crunch bars, the product is tasty, satisfying and delivers a decent protein hit with reasonable macros. Whilst I would happily recommend the combat crunch range, in terms of this flavour (cookies and cream), I would say that whilst it tastes fine, you wouldn't really notice a difference from most of the other flavours such as s'mores or chocolate chip cookie flavours. So I would say pick these up if you haven't tried these but if you're looking for a change of flavour and you already have some of the other bars, perhaps purchase a different bar for variation.