Weight Loss Coach and Owner at 9 To 5 Nutrition

Joe is an online weight loss coach, certified nutritionist and qualified personal trainer who helps busy, lawyers, marketers and accountants lose weight and keep it off forever.

He specialises in working with people that have busy lives and don't necessarily have time to exercise and cook complex nutritious meals. Having had a 9-5 desk-job, Joe understands the struggles of juggling a hectic life with trying to maintain a good physique.

Joe has helped over 100 professionals lose weight and feel better about themselves using simple, repeatable daily habits and an easy-to-use spreadsheet to track everything.

Joe has also been quoted on several respected sites including Nike, Live Science and Health.com.

While Joe mainly works online these days, he also offers 1-2-1 personal training sessions across Sussex and Surrey.

If you want to know more, check out the about page, or get in touch

Important Update:

Aldi Protein bars are currently discontinued in the UK. This was something to do with allergens not being correctly listed. They are likely to come back on sale at some point, but for now, the best alternatives are Grenade Bars, you can find a link to my review below.

THE BEST GRENADE BAR FLAVOURS

For those of you that don’t know, Aldi is a budget UK supermarket offering groceries at a fraction of the price of the traditional big players like Tesco and Asda. I’ve used them for a few years now for all my weekly staples like meat and veg so I was over the moon when I clocked that they’d started selling their own brand protein bars.

ALDI use one of their in-house sub brands; Harvest Morn to market a variety of products from Cereal to Crisps, and their new High Protein Bar range is no different.

There are currently four flavours in the range, which are;

Cookie Dough
Peanut Butter
Birthday Cake
Salted Caramel

These aren;t anything groundbreaking that hasn’t been tried before, but they’re definitely more interesting than some of the standard flavours offered by more traditional protein bar brands.

How Do the Numbers Stack Up?

Being a budget product, you might expect the ALDI bars to be lacking in the protein department or be mega high in sugar and calories as a result of the addition of some ropy ingredients.

Neither is true.

These bars stack up incredibly well against much more expensive competitors like Grande, PHD and Warrior.

Below are the stats for each individual bar

Flavour	Calories	Protein (g)	Sugar (g)	Fiber (g)
Cookie Dough	219	21	1.9	7
Peanut Butter	223	22	2	6.9
Birthday Cake	214	21	1.6	5.6
Salted Caramel	215	21	1.8	8

These numbers are well on par with bars that are more than double the price, so ALDI have done amazingly well to produce a tasty, healthy high-quality bar that rivals branded, expensive players on calories, protein, fiber and sugar, and absolutely annihilates them on price!

Just for reference, The ALDI Protein Bars cost £1.29, in some places carb Killas can cost up to £3.50. This means that if you buy a protein bar three times per week, you could have yourself well over £300 per year, if you switch from Carb Killas to ALDI Protein Bars.

Are ALDI Protein Bars Good For You?

Like any other bar, there is no reason why ALDI Protein Bars are bad for you, but like any other food, you should eat them in moderation, and as part of a varied diet that supports your goals.

The key thing to remember is that protein bars are designed for convenience, so while ALDI protein bars might be a good option to grab if you’re on the go and have no other choice, they certainly shouldn’t replace whole-food protein sources like;

Red meat
Poultry
Fish
Dairy
Eggs
Beans and Legumes

This is because these protein sources are of higher quality, i.e. they’re absorbed more efficiently by the body, and they also contain other beneficial vitamins and minerals such as B12 and Zinc that support your overall health.

So, yes, ALDI protein bars can be part of a healthy diet, but you definitely shouldn’t be relying on them to make up a significant portion of your protein intake.

Are ALDI Protein Bars Good for Weight Loss?

The ALDI Protein bars are no better or worse than any other protein bar on the market when it comes to weight loss.

In order to lose weight, you need to create a calorie deficit, i.e. you need to eat fewer calories than you use every day, consistently over a long period of time.

You can do this by eating protein or anything else you like for that matter.

However, if ALDI protein bars do help you adhere to a specific calorie number consistently because you enjoy them, then definitely include them in your diet!

What About the Individual Bars?

Ok let’s get into the individual bars. There are four flavours available at the moment, but I’ll update this review as the flavour list grows.

Let’s get into it;

Cookie Dough

Calories: 219

Protein: 21g

This is similar to the Cookie Dough Carb Killa, just not quite as good.

While the filling bears a strong likeness to cookie dough, and the number of chocolate chips is generous, this bar is just too chewy to properly enjoy.

In fact, this bar was so dense I thought it might pull a couple of fo my teeth out.

Now, I don’t actually mind a chewy consistency, it means it takes a bit longer to eat and you generally enjoy it more, but this was extreme. It’s the caramel layer rather than the Cookie Dough or Chocolate that’s the main culprit behind your jaw getting the workout of its life.

Having said that, the flavour is still really good and at £1.29, you simply can’t criticise ethos too much when you consider that it’s less than half as cheap as some of its rivals. I’d rather buy these and give my jaw a workout than pay more than double for a Carb Killa!

Peanut Butter

Calories: 223

Protein: 22g

Again, I think this is meant to emulate the Carb Killa Peanut Nutter bar.

This has a chewy nougat centre, a layer of caramel and chocolate coating, it’s probably the least interesting of all the bars on this list, and crucially, doesn’t really taste very peanut-y.

Peanuts and/or peanut butter are a difficult thing to cram into a protein bar while keeping the calories low because they’re extremely calorie dense. So, you don’t really get that creamy, salty peanut hit, but rather a subtle nutty taste.

Just like some of the other bars on this list, the nougat layer is VERY chewy and will take quite a bit of effort to bite and chomp through.

This flavour has the most protein of all the bars on the list, but also the most calories and highest sugar content.

Birthday Cake

Calories: 214
Protein: 21g

The first thing to say about this flavour is that it’s covered in sprinkles, so when you take the wrapper off, be prepped for them to be scattered all over your floor.

This is a white chocolate-covered bar, with a vanilla nought filling and a layer of strawberry sauce. For me, it’s a little bland; to really nail that birthday cake flavour the jam-like layer needs to be more plentiful and intense.

Of all the Aldi bars this is the most similar to its Grenade counterpart, so much so that it would be difficult to tell them apart in a blind taste test.

This can only be a good thing considering the price.

Salted Caramel

Calories: 215

Protein: 21g

This is a weird one. This bar tastes absolutely nothing like salted caramel, and the filling certainly doesn’t resemble salted caramel.

It looks far more like an Oero-type filling with a cream or Marshmellow layer. Regardless, although this tastes nothing like Salted Caramel, it does taste really good.

The closest equivalent would be the Cookies n’ Cream Carb Killa, although it is still quite different from that.

This is probably my favourite flavour of the bunch, mainly because the filling is richer and more dark-chocolate like than the other bars.

FAQ

Which ALDI Protein Bar is The Tastiest?

This is of course subjective, but my personal favourite is the Salted Caramel flavour. As I said in the review above, this doesn’t really taste like Salted Caramel at all, but it does taste good

Which Bar is Best For Weight Loss?

Technically the best bar for weight loss is the Birthday Cake flavour because it only contains 214 calories. In order to lose weight you need to create a calorie deficit, so eating lower-calorie foods is going to help you achieve a deficit. Realistically however, the calorie differences between the bars are negligible, so go with whichever you like the taste of!

Who Makes ALDI Protein Bars?

This depends on what country you’re in. In the UK, ALDI Protein bars are sold under the ‘Harvest Morn’ subbrand, while in the US, ALDI sells their protein bars under the ‘Elevate’ name.

ALDI Protein Bar Review