A ranking and review of Robert Irvine’s best flavored FITCRUNCH Wafer Protein Bars. Notably, Irvine’s company has several different protein-based bar lines, including Delights, Baked, and Loaded Cookie variants.
You can find my review of their Protein Baked Bars here.
Review & Verdict
These are all pretty heavy when you look at the calorie and protein ratio, and even more so since they advertise themselves as wafers–shouldn’t they be light? Anyway…
Each one has a surprisingly hard, snappy, thick crunch, and mouthfeel-wise, feels like an overdone wafer in a sense. They’re not soft and airy, like many of the candy-based wafers found in stores. On the inside, they contain a double wafer with thin slivers of filling, very similar to those cheapo cream-filled wafers you find everywhere and rarely realize they are filled at all. Lastly, a thin shell with a generous amount of crispy rice-like balls on top encases each one, but unfortunately, even those crispy balls don’t add much, as you’re overwhelmed by the stiff wafer bite. Essentially, what you get is a hard-feeling, crunchy wafer bar.
In terms of their flavor, like many of their candy-based wafer counterparts, the wafers taste mostly on the plainer side, though still more flavorful and a hint sweeter on average. The flavors could even be more pronounced, but since the wafer portions take up the bulk of the bar, the advertised flavors are noticeably more subtle than they ought to be–not even the thin cream filling is enough to give them a high enough boost. Moreover, there is a definite smidge of artificial-like taste that lingers for a brief time after each bite, but to me, it didn’t detract too much from the experience. Lastly, overall, while these are a little sweeter than many candy-based wafers on the market, they are not nearly as close to most other protein products.
In the end, what you get are hard and crunchy wafers with mild amounts of sweetness and flavors. Equally so, a subtle artificial background that’s present but not overpowering, or one that does not detract significantly from the overall tasting experience. If you’re looking for protein bars with a lower sugar taste, you may want to opt for these. However, even as someone who loves wafers, these don’t do them justice enough to warrant repurchase — the mouthfeel and bite are just too stiff and unpleasant.
Flavor Ranking
1. Vanilla Gelato
This has a white chocolate shell with an equally white filling and wafer. It’s smooth, creamy, and tastes like a mild to moderately sweet vanilla with a hint of bitter artificialness. Also, it’s not quite vanilla; it tastes like there’s something else, like it’s some off-brand type of traditional vanilla. A protein vanilla? Maybe that’s it! It’s not a bad vanilla protein, either; in fact, I found it to be reasonably creamy and impactful. Either way, these are perfectly sweet, and there is enough flavor to combat the plainness of the wafer part itself.
2. Chocolate Peanut Butter
The sweetest one here–though it’s still quite tame–this has a pretty standard milk chocolate tasting shell with an equal part peanut from the inside filling. Both, together, provide a reasonable amount of flavor, and neither overpowers the other. As a side note, in terms of sweetness, I still think they could have been even sweeter–I love peanut butter and chocolate, and adding a little extra may have brought this to my favorite on the list. In addition, like the others, there is a background of artificialness coming from somewhere, yet both the milk chocolate and peanut butter still come across as authentic enough!
3. Raspberry Tart
Definitely the coolest looking one here! It has a bright white chocolate shell with a dark pastel purple inside. However, that’s where the coolness ends. A slight amount of creaminess with a sweeter and smoother raspberry is what you get, which, to me, is unfortunate because this is supposed to be “tart,” not “smooth and light.” It’s not a bad flavor, though I’d appreciate something more punchy; however, for a wafer-based bar, there is a reasonable amount of raspberry tastiness that comes through enough to enjoy. Of course, like the others, there is a slight artificialness.
4. Lemon Cream
Out of all the wafers here, surprisingly, this lemon-based bar tastes the least flavorful. Want something even remotely punchy? Yeah, you won’t find it here. It’s also the least sweet and artificial tasting–both good and a bad thing! What I ultimately got was a very light, creamy, non-punchy lemon undertone with an equally mild sugary wafer taste, that’s really it. Honestly, it’s kind of boring. Lastly, its composition looks to be a white chocolate shell with lemon filling inside, nothing too much to look for here!
5. Mint Chocolate Chip
A dark chocolate shell encases a milk chocolate-looking wafer and a generous amount of embedded filled rice throughout the center, as well as inside the top shell. And for whatever reason, this seemed to have a slightly less snappy crunch than some of the others on the list, but regardless, it was still crunchy.
Taste-wise, it tasted like a faint mint toothpaste with a mix of light and semi-dark chocolate. I think the toothpaste flavor is more pronounced here because this bar isn’t very sweet at all. In essence, what you get is authentic light chocolate flavors combined with an equally mild, non-fake, non-sugary mint, resulting in a more “clean” mint–AKA mild toothpaste flavor. An unfortunate coincidence.
It’s not horrible, however, if you’re a candy mint or peppermint lover like me, you will be disappointed in this flavor.