I just tried Skout Trailbars

One of my favorite features of our local natural foods store, New Seasons, is that they offer daily tastings of all sorts of local products. A few days ago, Jason, from Skout Natural right here in Portland, set out a spread of trailbar samples. Bonsai! http://skoutnatural.com/

The bars are a wonderful surprise. Not only are they organic and vegan, they don't have the usual long list of additives, fillers, and extras cramming up the ingredients list, making it as wide as the wrapper, itself. You know what I mean. Your eyes get tired after scanning a lot of other "natural" bars, searching for discrepancies and hidden naughtiness. Because Skout adds no protein powders, the nutrients are balanced more for aerobic activities than anaerobic, so bring these along when you do your runs, hikes, and bikes.

The flavor is light and fresh instead of heavy and cloyingly sweet. Maybe you've noticed how sensitive your taste buds can become when you've been hiking a long time or working out. Sweet becomes VERY sweet and salty becomes VERY salty. These bars are just right--they taste like fruit, nuts and cocoa, period. My favorite was the Chocolate Coconut; check out the ingredients: http://skoutnatural.com/shop/trailbars/organic-chocolate-coconut-trailbar-12-pack When I mentioned to Jason that my favorite cocoa was Holy Kakow, a local brand that grinds their cocoa in house, he exclaimed, "We share the same supplier!" http://www.holykakow.com/

I've made my own bars at home before by sticking dried fruit, nuts, etc. into a food processor and then going through the whole sticky mess of rolling them into balls, pushing them into Ziploc baggies, etc. Skout does it all for you, and no crummy food processor blades to scrub. If you are a Portlander, New Seasons carries Skout for $1.99 a bar.

If you have any questions, Jason is awesome. You can reach him directly at [email protected]

Baby Herc

Ha, of course they are made in Portland, Oregon! I need to try them.