Tested: SENS Pleasure Bars
24 January 2021
4 min read
SENS Foods is an edible insect start-up that is on a clear mission: to maximize nutrition, while minimizing harm. Thinking big, SENS pictures a future where every big city has its own massive cricket farm and thereby supplying the sustainable animal protein on a massive scale to us. According to SENSit is simple: if research has shown that we probably need a cricket farm to survive on Mars [1], why not apply the same logic to Earth right now? Working together with universities and local experts, they have started their own cricket farm in Thailand where all of their cricket protein is farmed from.
We cannot agree more with their ideas and beliefs, and were very happy to get our hands on the SENS Starter Pack. As one of the few out there, they offer a starter pack with a little bit of everything: flour, pasta, protein bars, and crackers. The first thing we tried are the SENS Pleasure Cricket Protein Bars, and read on to find out how much pleasure they brought us!
The (boring) facts
So what do the Pleasure Cricket Protein Bars offer? They come in three varieties: pineapple & coconut, dark chocolate & orange and dark chocolate & sour cherry. What we really like about the bars is that the number of ingredients is kept to a minimum. So, everybody will actually understand everything that is in these bars. No room for artificial sweeteners or weird E-numbers here. The key ingredients are dates, almonds and cricket flour. Every bar contains 10% of the cricker flour to get your protein in. In addition, the bars get their flavour from dark chocolate and dried fruit. If we take the dark chocolate & sour cherry bar, for example, the ingredients are: dates, almonds, dried sour cherry, dark chocolate, cricket flour and aronia juice concentrate. And that's it, no further weird stuff added.
All in all, a bar of 40 grams gives you approximately:
- 170 calories
- 8 grams of fat
- 16 grams of carbs (of which basically all sugar from the dried fruit)
- 6 grams of protein
But how does it taste?!
Making this short, the bars are super tasty. We are always looking for a surprising tatse, a moist structure and when a bar has a fruity touch, it gets even better. Nevertheless, they don't remind us of typical protein bars at all. Their appearence strikes us more like a snack or nature bar rather than an after-workout pleasure. For a protein bar, we also think that the bar contains little protein to get the refill needed after pushing hard on your yoga mat or favorite workout spot.
Do you always stop in the supermarket to look for a bar of dark chocolate with a fruity kick? So are we, which is exactly where the Dark Chocolate & Orange bar comes in, since it tastes fruity and exotic at the same time. It has that typical bitter chocolate flavour (which most people either love or hate), that is complemented with a rather intense hint of orange.
Enjoy a Piña Colada because it reminds of beachy vibes, but feel like a cocktail after a workout is not the best idea? The Pineapple & Coconut does not contain alcohol, but gives you gains in return. It is sweet and sour at the same time and the taste of coconut is the one that is most present. The dried pineapple gives it the same touch as the famous cocktail, and sometimes you even get a hint of the dried apricot that is added as well.
Can't get enough of the cherry season and does this always make you extra sad that summer is over? The Dark Chocolate & Sour Cherry bar has that typical sourness that dominates the taste. Because the sour cherry and dark chocolate are so outspoken though, this does mean you don't taste much else. We thought this version was very flavourful and liked it the best.
What we love about the SENS bars is the mimmal input and the maximal output: with few ingredients the bars have great taste! We have many products to try from SENS to truely be able to judge them to the fullest but we give the bars a big thumps up and are keen to try the rest.
- Jack Elsom (September 20th, 2019). The Daily Mail. How humans could survive on Mars by eating INSECTS: Colonies would need lab-grown meat, tunnel-grown crops and cricket farms, a study finds. Accessed January 24th, 2021 at https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7485819/How-humans-survive-Mars-eating-INSECTS.html