You can satisfy pretty much any nutritional need in portable, rectangular form these days: Protein bars, fiber bars, performance bars (whatever that even means), protein and fiber bars... And the FLAVORS, my god. Caramel fudge, mint chocolate chip, strawberry. It’s like ice cream!
Unfortunately, also much like ice cream, these bars can cause pretty unfortunate side effects for some people. If you’ve ever experienced gassiness, cramping, bloating, and general not-okayness in the stomach area after your a.m. fiber bar or post-workout protein bar, it’s normal to feel betrayed and confused. But you’re not alone.
“A lot of these bars with a health angle can have ingredients that can cause people [GI] distress,” Colleen Tewksbury, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.D., senior research investigator and bariatric program manager at Penn Medicine and president-elect of the Pennsylvania Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, tells SELF.
Cool, it’s not in our heads, so what’s up with that? Here’s what you need to know about the common bar ingredients that could be giving you tummy trouble.
The first culprit: added fiber
The nondigestible type of carbohydrate we call fiber is, in many ways, da bomb. In addition to regulating digestion and helping you poop—as if that wasn’t enough!—fiber slows down the absorption of sugar and cholesterol into the bloodstream, which can help to keep blood sugar levels steady and LDL cholesterol levels lower, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Fiber intake is associated with many measures of health, and most of us could do with eating more of it.
We all know this. And, the people trying to sell bars know that we know this—so they load ‘em up with fiber. We’re talking 10, 12, or 15 grams of fiber a serving. That’s far above and beyond that of an apple (4 or 5 grams) or slice of whole grain bread (3 grams). In fact, “That’s about half your fiber needs for the whole day,” Beth Kitchin, Ph.D., R.D.N., assistant professor in the UAB Department of Nutrition Sciences, tells SELF. (The Dietary Guidelines recommend getting about 14 g per 1,000 calories in your diet, so around 25 to 35 g for most people.)
Common bar ingredients like oats or nuts can naturally provide a few grams of fiber, but food manufacturers typically use what’s called added fiber to dramatically boost a product’s fiber content. The most popular kind is extracted and isolated from a plant called chicory root. Manufacturers like it because it helps pack a huge hit of fiber without making it taste like mulch. Look out for chicory root, inulin, chicory root fiber, chicory root extract, or oligofructose on the ingredients label, per the FDA. Added fiber isn’t broken out separately in the Nutrition Facts; it’s just included in the total fiber count. So a high-fiber content is your tipoff to look for one of those ingredient names.
And you may have already learned the hard way that as wonderful as fiber is, there is such a thing as too much. Whenever you eat a ton of fiber in one sitting—or just more than you’re used to—you run the risk of messing with your tummy, Kitchin says. Overdoing it on fiber can commonly cause gas, bloating, and cramping, according to the Mayo Clinic.
