ENERGY BOOST

The quest to build a perfect protein bar.

- BY HANNAH GOLDFIELD

Protein is a fixation for those who wish to optimize their diets—and their lives.

In the past seventy-five years in America, the nutritional bar has gone from niche to mainstream. In the fifties, Bob Hoffman, of York, Pennsylvania, known as “the father of weightlifting,” and an early manufacturer of barbells, hawked a product called Hi-Proteen Honey Fudge. Made from soybean flour and peanut butter, it was touted as offering “strength and endurance,” without “commercial” sugar—“not candy, just a good health, energy and body building food.”

In 1969, Pillsbury attempted to capitalize on Americans’ excitement about the moon landing by releasing Space Food Sticks, a grocery-store adaptation of a product developed for astronauts: compact tubes made with corn syrup, vegetable oil, and sodium caseinate, a derivative of cow’s milk, meant to be consumed through a helmet port. By the turn of the century, the form wouldn't seem so futuristic, or novel. As fitness evolved from pastime to life style, the PowerBar, created in 1986, became a staple even for amateur athletes, and a Clif Bar seemed as crucial for a hike as boots.