Would you eat something made of ground up crickets? We would, and we did. See what Jason makes of Crobar – a new type of bar made out of cricket flour (and other ingredients). As well as being better for the environment, it’s also pretty good for you. Take a look…
Rating:
Appeals to:
Healthy eaters, but NOT vegans. Despite the ethics, the ingredients contain insect flour – that’s not vegan…
Price:
Ranging from £6.99-£35.99
With free shipping on orders over £20
What are they?
Crobar is the UK’s first healthy, ‘free-from’ and ethically produced energy bar containing cricket flour. Many existing snacks contain gluten, dairy, too much sugar or too low quality protein. Crobar is higher in protein than other natural energy bars, and it is an introduction for people to try a new and much more sustainable protein source – flour made from crickets.
Brought to us from Christine Spliid; ‘Cr’ for crickets, ‘cro’ rhyming with pro for protein, and the association with the tool crowbar. This product was also the winner at the World Innovation Awards 2016, for Best New Food Concept.
Products:
Cricket flour flavoured bars, available as separate or variety packs. There’s 4 flavours so far:
- Cacao
- Peanut
- Rasberry & cacao
- Coffee & vanilla
You can also buy the flour – which is what the bars are mainly made from. I think it’s mainly intended for baking.
The bars have an enjoyable chewy & grainy texture to them, like you would expect from an energy bar, and because they are cricket-based it’s probably easy to think that a lot of that texture is from raw chunks of crickets – it’s not, the cricket protein is flour based.
Not that it’s a criticism, but the flavours aren’t overwhelming like some other protein/energy bars I have tried. They don’t have that cheap sugary processed taste that some products do – I suppose they’re more subtle.
Verdict:
If you care about not only your health but also the environment, then these are certainly worth a try.
For anyone squeamish about the idea of ingesting crickets, don’t worry, there is nothing in the taste or texture that makes you think of them, and the flavours are tasty! The bars are quite small (IMHO) which makes it harder to justify the price of them, but remember it’s all about the benefits of eating and farming crickets over cattle, which isn’t cheap.
Where are they available?
http://gathrfoods.com/products/