“Eat right, stay brilliant” is the Rude Health motto who have celebrated their 10th anniversary recently and what they’ve achieved in those years is pretty outstanding. Starting with creating yummy muesli cereals in their kitchen to now creating exciting and innovative food products such as the world’s first vegetable bar. They believe that we should all eat real food and source all their ingredients from fields, orchards and vines and never ever from laboratories. We recently had all four of Rude Health’s snack bars to try – and so had to put them to the test, after all it’d be rude not to, right? Read on for the full review.
Ingredients:
The Beetroot – Dates, Cashews, Beetroot 12%, Sunflower Seeds
The Pumpkin – Dates, Cashews, Pumpkin Seeds 10%, Apples, Cinnamon 0.8%, Ginger 0.5%
The Peanut – Dates, Peanuts 39.3%, Sunflower Seeds, Pumpkin Seeds, Sea Salt
Sweet Potato & Cacao – Dates, Cashew nuts, Sunflower Seeds, Sweet Potato 8%, Cacao Powder 7%, Cacao Butter 6%, Vanilla
Nutrition: Keeping to their ethos of only using real food, all of the Rude Heath range is free from thickeners, preservatives, colourings, flavourings and other additives. They are non GM, have no refined sugars and are gluten and dairy free. Ticking all the important boxes so far…time to tuck in and taste!
Taste:
The Beetroot
This was a bit of a scary one for me as I’m not the biggest fan of beetroot but my perspective is swiftly shifting. As I opened the packet, I got the expected distinctive, earthy beetroot scent but I was much more impressed with the bar’s appearance. It’s a deep red with speckles of white from the cashews which is pretty pleasing to the eye, but what about the tongue? The bar is soft to bite and slightly gooey and has a gently chewy consistency with a mildly grainy (from the cashew nuts) bite throughout. This beetroot bar has gotten to someone who heretofore didn’t like beetroot to love it! I rest my case.
The Pumpkin
The smell was somewhat nostalgic to all things about winter time (like those chunky soups) and made me want to take a generous mouthful. This one has more of a textured bite to it and the flavours blend so well that I couldn’t decide which I could taste the most out of pumpkin, cinnamon and ginger. The ginger surprises you with a lovely warming feeling whilst the pumpkin gives the bar its unique taste. This combination works very well.
The Peanut
As a nut lover I was excited about trying this one to say the least and it didn’t disappoint. You know when you take a bite of food and mumble the words “Oh my!” with a full mouth? Well, that happened. The nutty notes are pleasantly apparent and the textured combination of crunchy and soft is just right. I would go as far as advising they rebrand this bar to ‘The Peanut Perfection’.
Sweet Potato & Cacao
The smell alone upon opening is scrumptious. This is a dry bar compared to the rest and has a raw-like texture and taste. It crumbles and melts in the mouth all at once and leaves a lingering full-bodied, regal yet homely taste of cacao on the palate that I’m certainly not averse to. Cacao is the purest form of chocolate and that is exactly how I would describe this bar, Raw and Pure!
Value: All but one is only 99p, the Sweet Potato & Cacao is still only £1.19 which make them very reasonably priced bars with luxury taste. Perhaps if they were a little larger…or is that me being too rude here?
Summary: After trying all the bars with peace of mind assured (simply buy and eat without needing to second guess if they’re doing your health good) I would say the taste test has been a noteworthy one. I absolutely love how I can trust these bars to be real food with no hidden nasties and of course being vegan which is a huge bonus for me and all you other animal loving vegans! The only thing we’ll confess is a pity right now, a rude-awakening of sorts is that we’re all out of these bars which were savoured to the full in hardly any time at all!
Rude Health snack bars are available from Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda, Holland & Barrett and many more stockists. Do check out their lively, vibrant and colourful presence on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, don’t be rude, say hello to Rude Health!
