4 Female-Created Healthy Energy Bars You Just Have To Try

Flavors circle around a cookie dough theme (seriously!), such as Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, White Chocolate Macadamia Cookie Dough and Double Dark Chocolate Cookie Dough.  

Crazed Foods

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Fueling her body with nutrition has long been a passion of competitive runner Emma Abrahamson. As a collegiate athlete, she learned about nutrition and the importance of eating enough to keep up with her body’s energy needs.  She also learned to love coffee. When Crazed Foods was in the idea phase, Abrahamson decided to merge her love for coffee and peanut butter, one of her favorite foods as a runner. She wanted to create a bar that offered a protein plus a caffeine boost for her early morning workouts — something she knew others also could benefit from.  

Crazed Foods emerged based on this heavenly combination of peanut butter and coffee, which packs a punch —16 grams of protein and 55 milligrams of caffeine. “There is 16g of sugar in each bar predominantly from honey, which is great for a quick release of energy preworkout or to help refuel the glycogen in your muscles after a hard workout,” Abrahamson explains. Besides being ideal for those needing instant fuel before or after workouts, the bar is a perfect pick-me-up for that “afternoon slump” during the workday, she says.  

Elemental Superfoods

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When Nicole Anderson's daughter was diagnosed with autism in 2001, she began researching the connection between autism and food after observing her daughter’s symptoms exacerbated with certain ingredients. She eliminated gluten, dairy, soy and refined sugar, creating meals from scratch since nothing like this was available on the market at the time.

After several weeks, she noticed changes in her daughter. “I know now that her body was beginning to heal,” Anderson says. She was excited about this newfound way of eating and shared her creations with family and friends. Elemental Superfoods got its official start when a local juice business owned by a friend asked to put Anderson’s seedbar on their menu. 

Things took off and today, Elemental Superfoods can be found online or in stores and is available in either seedbar or crumble form. “The crumble has the same ingredients as seedbars, just formulated differently. Crumbles are great to sprinkle on smoothies, yogurt, açaí bowls or oatmeal,” Anderson says. And no matter what flavor you choose, they’re all clean: certified organic, gluten-free, dairy-free, soy- and corn-free, and Non-GMO Project verified.