MYO vs. The Rest: How Our Protein Bar Compares

The protein bar aisle is crowded. There are bars marketed as clean, bars marketed as keto, bars marketed as high-protein, bars marketed as meal replacements… you can get lost in a wall of protein bars in most stores! But, most of them, if you look past the packaging, share a lot of the same shortcuts.

We built MYO to be genuinely different. Not in a marketing-copy sense, in the actual formulation. Here is how we stack up.

The Ingredient Problem Most Bars Have

Walk down the protein bar section of any grocery store and start reading ingredient labels. You will notice a few things pretty quickly.

First, most bars use seed oils - canola, sunflower, palm kernel, soybean, and others. These are cheap, shelf-stable fats that blend easily into processed food. They are not the worst thing in the world, but they are not what anyone would reach for if they were cooking at home.

Second, most bars sweeten with sugar alcohols - particularly maltitol, which has a glycemic index high enough to matter and is well-known for causing GI discomfort. Others use sugar syrups dressed up with clean-sounding names, or combinations of sweeteners that create an unmistakable artificial aftertaste.

Third, most bars rely on standard whey protein isolate. This works fine but can contribute bitterness that brands then have to mask with extra sweetener or flavoring. The result is a lot of formulas that taste like a compromise.

And then, of course, you have the high carb content in most bars we see on the shelves. Ever wonder why you have to eat 27g of carbs just to get you 12g of protein? Yeah, us too.

What MYO Does Differently

We start with the fat. MYO uses extra virgin olive oil - rich in polyphenols and monounsaturated fats. No seed oils. This is a meaningful ingredient-level decision. We designed our bar around EVOO.

We sweeten it with allulose. It has zero added sugar grams per FDA guidelines, causes no digestive distress at our use levels, and - the big thing - it actually tastes like sugar! Clean sweet, not processed by your body like regular sugar, not tooth-decaying, no aftertaste.

Our protein blend includes hydrolyzed whey, micellar casein, and whey isolate. Our special blend uniquely removes that chalky or medicinal taste you often find in protein products. The result is a protein blend that behaves like real food. We were also obsessed about the type of protein in our bar, aiming for ‘complete’ protein. Our Protein Digestibility-Corrected Amino Acid Score (PDCAAS) score is 1.0, considered high-quality, complete protein that provides 100% of essential amino acid requirements per serving after adjusting for digestibility.

Put it together and you get a bar with meaningful protein, low net carbs, zero added sugar, and ingredients that are thoughtful.

The Flavors

We currently offer three flavors: Peanut Butter Blueberry Swirl, Lemon Raspberry Zing, and Chocolate Macadamia. Each was developed by our family, and taste-tested by our children, friends & early customers! We iterated until it hit a bar that we'd actually want to eat.

Peanut Butter Blueberry is the everyday workhorse, but we keep the fats lower with a mild peanut butter flavor. Lemon Raspberry is bright and clean-tasting, with a zing - unusual in a protein bar, we’re told. Chocolate Macadamia is rich without being heavy - and our family favorite. All three are built on the same EVOO, and high-quality protein base.

The Honest Comparison

We are not going to name competitors by name. But if you want to do a side-by-side, here is what to look for: fat source, sweetener type, protein blend, and net carbs. Those four things tell you most of what you need to know about how a bar was formulated.

On all four, we like where MYO stands.

See for yourself — shop MYO bars here and taste the difference.