Bar in Your Bag = Brilliant

I am a proponent of whole foods.  Real foods, unprocessed foods, foods that are as close to their original form as possible: these are the things I like to cook, eat and keep in my kitchen.  However, I have been running around lately like a chicken with her head cut off, and sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures.  Particularly on my runs to Boston and back in preparation for this move, I don't always have time to stop for the kind of meal or even the kind of snack that I would ideally like to consume.  The baby, you see, is something of a ticking time bomb.  Don't get me wrong, he's phenomenally well behaved, but even with his above-average angel-like demeanor, I can only push the lad so far on these run-around days before I really need to get him home, fed, and into his own comfy bed for a nap, only after all of which might I have time to shove a sandwich down my gullet.

 "Don't push me, Mom." 

On these days, I've found myself having what the husband affectionately refers to as my "low blood sugar moments" wherein I become alternately evil, panicked, shaky and/or filled with rage.  Not pretty. So, despite my preference for salads or smoothies or other more whole foods solutions while on-the-go, I've finally gotten hip to having a bar in my purse for these emergencies.  I love Kashi's granola bars (I really have yet to find a Kashi product I don't adore), but at about 120 calories, with 2 grams of fat and 5 grams of protein, they're hardly enough to count as a meal replacement, and they certainly don't stave off the crazies.  When I am desperate enough to count on a bar for nourishment, I want that sucker to really do the job, and I think I've finally found my go-to Bag Bar: Think Thin bars.

Never mind the mildly embarrassing name, the unfortunate diet-food branding and the plastic-y looking woman on their homepage.  Ignore all that and focus on the fact that Think Thin bars have 20 grams of protein and are sugar and gluten free (I am not gluten-sensitive, but know so very many people who are, so I think this is great).  They have 230 calories and 8 grams of fat a piece, and while I don't think they should regularly serve as a meal replacement in a balanced diet, on those super-hectic days, they can absolutely serve as lunch.  The protein shot keeps me full and prevents me from having a road rage incident, and they are fairly tasty as well: so far my faves are the peanut butter and the brownie crunch.  The brownie crunch has a nice, rich dark chocolate quality to it, while the peanut butter invokes a very health Reeses' Cup. Being able to feel satisfied and sustained by something that can fit in your purse is both comforting and convenient;  I will never be without one of these puppies again.

Think Thin has a coupon for 50 cents off of any of their bars on their website.

My local grocer sells these for $1.17, so you're looking at 67 cents for a meal in your bag, people... that's pretty hard to beat.  Try them and let me know what you think!