Quest Bars - A Look at Nutrition and Ingredients

Hop on to any social media platform and look up any health-conscience person. You’ll see that the fittest people love, or even worship, certain brands of protein bars.

You may even ask if it’s even real food or if it can help you do more pull-ups. Maybe you’re wondering why it looks like the tile grout in your bathroom.

So here comes Quest — a protein bar that went from a side hustle to a billion-dollar company in under five years.

A Candy Bar in Disguise

Tom Bilyeu is Quest’s president and co-founder. He got his start out in Silicon Valley and he has made a lot of waves in the fitness industry. Bilyeu considers Quest a “transformation company.”

Tom is so focused on improving and always accomplishing more — he even had an alarm set in his phone that said: “have the guts to be poor.”

Tom ran a pretty successful software company which he sold in 2010 to pursue Quest.

“We were standing in this beautiful conference room overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and I turned to my partners and I said, ‘I’m completely miserable.’ I had courage to say, ‘I’m going to make the demand in my life that I enjoy and believe in what I’m doing,” said Bilyeu.

Tom grew up in a morbidly obese family out in Tacoma, Washington. His decision to change his life lead him to start a company with the ultimate goal of ending metabolic diseases, like diabetes — all linked to obesity.

“All our products are designed from the standpoint of how they impact your blood panel,” Bilyeu said.

With a purpose coming before money, Quest knew that added sugars was out of the question, no matter how natural. The second goal was to make food that people would choose because of how great it tasted, not because it was simply better for you.

“Food is the center of our social lives and it has a drug-like quality that makes it so much fun. But that relationship quickly turns abusive,” he said. “I wanted to acknowledge the wonderful way it feels to sit around with your family and share in a gorgeous meal, but make it good for you.

“If I’m overweight, I’m going to turn to someone who’s in shape and say, ‘What do you eat?’” he said. “We wanted the answer to that to be Quest.”

So Tom and his co-founder pulled out the rolling pins and knives to start making protein bars. Since they had no idea about industrial cooking, it took them some time before things started to pick up. “We couldn’t even give the bars away back then because people were convinced that protein bars were just junk,” he said.

But by 2011, they were getting an order or two a day. Then, Bilyeu says, “it went bonkers.”

Jumping to 2018, they have a billion-dollar company and Bilyeu aims to see Quest in every aisle of the grocery store. “The only trend that lasts is metabolic truth,” he said.

Quest Bar Flavors

There are a lot of flavors offered — finding the best one will be up to you.

Quest offers:

• Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
• Birthday Cake
• Oatmeal Chocolate Chip
• Cookies & Cream
• Blueberry Muffin
• Peanut Butter Brownie Smash
• Double Chocolate Chunk
• White Chocolate Raspberry
• S’mores
• Chocolate Brownie
• Mocha Chocolate Chip
• Waffle Protein Bar
• Mint Chocolate Chip
• Rocky Road
• Peanut Butter Supreme
• Vanilla Almond Crunch
• Apple Pie
• Cinnamon Roll
• Chocolate Peanut Butter
• Strawberry Cheesecake
• Coconut cashew
• Pumpkin Pie
• Peppermint Bark

Quest Bar Ingredients

Since many Quest bars have different ingredient profiles, let’s take a look at the ingredients in a Birthday Cake Quest Bar.

• Calories 180
• Total Fat 6g
• Saturated Fat 3.5g
• Trans Fat 0g
• Cholesterol 5mg
• Sodium 220mg
• Total Carbohydrate 24g
• Dietary Fiber 14g
• Sugars 1g
• Erythritol 6g
• Protein 21g
• Allergens: CONTAINS: MILK, ALMONDS

PROCESSED IN A FACILITY THAT ALSO PROCESSES EGGS, PEANUTS, SOY, WHEAT, AND OTHER TREE NUTS.

Key Takeaways About Protein Bars

This article isn’t to tell you if you should or shouldn’t eat protein bars. In fact, I eat them myself.

Now that you know a little about the company, Quest bar flavors, and their ingredients, it’s time to go over a few key points about protein bars.

1. According to the definition of a “clean food,” Quest bars aren’t. Clean food is the least processed version of a food. So a boneless skinless chicken breast, not a frozen chicken patty.
2. No nutritional bar can replace whole food. There will always be a time and place for them, so when you don’t have a kitchen in sight, a Quest bar is better than fast food.
3. Protein bars contain processed ingredients. Tom and his crew spend a lot of time researching and improving their ingredients, but that doesn’t take away the fact there are highly processed ingredients and some high-intensity sweeteners in Quest bars.
4. The isolated fiber source in a Quest bar could cause bloating or gastrointestinal distress.