I recently got sent a sample box of bars from Human Food to review. I’d not heard of them previously but was keen to see what they did after learning they hailed from the seaside town of Tenby in West Wales.

I’ve tried my fair share of energy / protein / meal replacement bars over the years but I’ve never been drawn to any i’ve tried to be honest as I find them all a bit synthetic, especially the protein based ones.

Human Food started out as a pipe dream on Kickstarter and ended up being the highest grossing food product in the UK and the highest Vegan food product in the world at £80k of investment. After hearing that, I thought they must be onto something great.

So what is Human Food?

Human Food contains no artificial flavours or sweeteners, no added sugar, and no synthetic nutrients. It contains only organic whole-foods and whole-food extracts which have always been part of the human diet. Also, Human Food has been made specifically to support a plant-based diet, making it easy to live in a healthy, sustainable and humane way.

Human Food is a combination of 20 organic whole foods and whole food extracts, selected and balanced for optimal taste and bio-availability. Each bar contains essential nutrients that can be difficult to obtain from a plant-based diet, plus whole daily amounts of functional ingredients.

The bars come in 3 different flavours, but all containing the same base ingredients. The flavours are:

• Red Bar – Organic Goji Berries
• Yellow Bar – Organic Turmeric
• Green Bar – Organic Spirulina

The base ingredients come in the form of:

Organic Hulled Hemp Seeds (10g), Organic Dried Banana, Organic Dates, Organic Apple Juice Concen- trate, Organic Hemp Protein, Organic Sunflower Seeds, Organic Pumpkin Seeds, Organic Figs, Organic Dried Apricots, Organic Cacao Powder (3g), Algae Extract, Organic Puffed Quinoa, Organic Mulberries, Organic Maca (500mg), Organic Quinoa Sprout Extract, Curry Leaf Extract, Organic Siberian Ginseng (200mg), Organic Mushroom Extract, Organic Black Pepper.

I was sent a mixed box of containing one of each flavour and a leaflet included in the packet gave some serving suggestions such as straight from the packet, blended in a smoothie or chopped and added to a breakfast of fruits, nuts and yogurt (which is one of my go to breakfasts too).

The bars contain only natural ingredients and Human Food have stated the bars have taken 4 years and over 200 iterations to get the mix just right. They contain 100% of the daily recommended intake (RI) of vitamin B12 and at least 50% of the RI of: Iron, Zinc, Vit D, calcium and Omega 3, as well as over 11 grams of protein, which I’m guessing is slightly better than a your regular bacon and egg McMuffin on the commute to work in the morning.

How do they taste?

I wasn’t sure which one to go for first, but ended up trying the tumeric bar, which comes in the yellow wrapper. I’d only ever put tumeric in a curry or tumeric roasted cauliflower, with both being savoury dishes I was intrigued at how it would work with the nuts and dried fruit ingredients.

Come to think of it, I’m not actually sure what tumeric on it’s own tastes like but whatever it is, it wasn’t overpowering in this bar. Tumeric is well known for it’s natural inflammatory boosting properties so it sounds like a good ingredient to get more of into your diet.

I was positively surprised with the tumeric bar, as I really didn’t know how it would fair without being in a savoury dish or food stuff. I use dried figs quite a lot in my overnight oats and breakfast yogurts so it had the same squidgy texture, with added crisp and crunch from the nuts.

Next up I thought I’d try adding it to one of my go to breakfasts, which is yogurt, where I normally add some fresh berries, dried figs, nuts, chia and oats as this sounded like a complete replacement when I didn’t have time to prep my breakfast.

Instead of prepping the night before, I dolloped a few spoonfuls of greek yogurt from my fridge in work, tore up the berry bar into small chunks and dived in. I thought it made a good substitute for my normal fresh and dried mish mash of yogurt toppers, especially when pressed for time.

I think I’d still like to add a few more fresh berries to the yogurt, but this would make an excellent addition to get some missing nutrients added to my breakfast staple. They are handy as you can keep them in your drawer in work, along with a big tub of yogurt to save you when you haven’t had time to prep breakfast or mid afternoon snack.

I’ve still not tried the Organic Spirulina yet, as I’ve looked up Spirulina and it’s supposed to taste a bit earthy. I don’t think i’ll be trying it raw on it’s own, as I think it will probably be best suited to being blended in a smoothie with something a bit sweeter to balance it out. I’ll let you know how I get on when I give that one a go.

The Verdict

I did enjoy the Tumeric and the Goji berry bars. I felt like I was eating something really good for me without having to  force it down, unlike some health based food bars or shakes. It was dense, filling and kept me going for a good few hours. It would be perfect for a long mountain trek, where you need some energy without the added garbage most energy / protein bars cram into them.

I’d definitely introduce the Goji Berry bar into my morning yogurt mix for a satisfying blend of natural ingredients, after a heavy lifting session the night before as they contain a respectable amount of protein at 11g per bar too, along with the greek yogurt you’re looking at close to 20g.

The bars come in a variety of subscriptions priced at £3.30 per bar, from a taster box priced at £9.90, a two week trial at £33 for 10 bars or one off orders between 10 and 500 bars.

For further info on Human Food go to https://humanfood.coop