Tuesday, September 3, 2019
Energy Bars: Balance Bar Versus Power Bar :: Comparison Compare Contrast Essays
        The Balance Bar and Power Bar are two energy bars currently on the market. These two bars, despite their largely different carbohydrate, fat and protein contents, performed remarkably similarly in insulin level tests conducted by Steven Hertzler and Yeonsoo Kim of Ohio State University. Post meal studies have found that test subjects who consumed the Balance Bar exhibited a similar pattern of insulin level increase over time as subjects who consumed the Power Bar did. These test results go contrary to expectations.         The Power Bar and Balance Bar, due to their relatively different purposes, are quite different in nutritional content. Because of the Power Bar’s focus on supplying quick energy to athletes, it contains a large amount of easily absorbable carbohydrates and very little protein or fat, which take much longer to digest. The Balance Bar, on the other hand, attempts to maintain a 40:30:30 ratio of carbohydrates to fats to proteins. This ratio of nutrients is set in order to adhere to the Zone theory of weight loss. Side by side, the differences are clear. Of the 60 grams in a Power Bar, 38.8 grams (about 65 percent) were composed of carbohydrates, a large contrast to the 26.4 grams (about 44 percent) of carbohydrates present in a similar 60 gram Balance Bar. In addition, while the Power bar has only 9.2 grams of protein, the Balance Bar has nearly double that amount, containing a much higher 16.8 grams. Fat content follows this same trend, with the Power Bar’s 2.3 grams almost tripled by the Balance Bar’s 7.3 grams.         Because of the nutritional findings, scientists expected the post-prandial (after a meal) levels of insulin to appear quite different from each other. Because insulin levels have often been found in correlation to carbohydrate levels, researchers were expecting to find such a difference in their insulin concentration results. In addition, because the body can convert carbohydrates into energy more readily, a subject who consumed a Power Bar would be expected to have an insulin increase and eventual decrease much faster than a subject who consumed a Balance Bar would.         While the two energy bars have very different compositions, laboratory tests appear to show very little difference in their effects on insulin production. In a 120-minute analysis of insulin levels after 15-minute intervals, both bars revealed a common trend. 15 minutes after consumption of the bars, both Power Bar and Balance Bar test subjects had approximately
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