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Check out the best healthy energy bars that can help power you through your next long bout of exercise — plus one bar you'll want to avoid eating before a workout.

We know the feeling — the feeling of waltzing down a supermarket aisle to find the protein bar section, but getting too overwhelmed that we just put our protein bar-hunting on the back burner. It's time to revisit that deep-dive into all the different brands and ingredients that are expert-backed to help you up your protein count in a healthy, balanced way. 

What do you get the backpacker who really does have everything? Take it from someone whose gear loft is one solid shopping spree from collapsing: Gift them something that they won’t have to find storage space for. Think of Kate’s Real Food as an elevated version of your childhood granola bar: They’re packed with a laundry list of nutritious whole-food ingredients like organic oats, honey, dried fruit, and peanut butter.

Selecting a snack bar is highly subjective, as individual preferences for taste and nutrition vary. However, Kate’s Real Food 24-Pack Mini Snack Bars tick the right boxes with their extensive variety of flavors, carefully chosen organic ingredients, and portable convenience. These Kate’s Real Food organic energy bars are a convenient snack choice for children during school breaks, playtime, and road trips. You can have these when powering through a busy workday, tackling a challenging hike, or running errands.

There are many advantages to buying store-bought snacks. You have a ton of variety, flavor profiles, and textures to choose from. Becerkman suggests an organic granola bar like Kate’s Real Food as her go-to healthy after-school snack. USDA-certified organic, gluten-free, and non-GMO, Kate’s Real Food granola snack bars are made with dried fruit, oats, chocolate, nut butter and more – there is so much wholesome goodness in every bite.

“When looking for the healthiest options for protein bars, I always prioritize ingredients and ensure the ingredients are simple and natural,” Kayla Barnes, certified brain health coach and nutrition expert, told the New York Post. “You should be able to pronounce or have heard of the ingredients before. Avoid bars with pro-inflammatory oils like canola and soybean and artificial ingredients.”

For every flight over 400 miles, Delta provides all passengers with complimentary snacks. Options include cheddar-flavored Sunchips, organic energy bars from Kate’s Real Food ,and roasted almonds from Nuts.com. 

Click to take a look at the airlines with the best free in-flight snacks this summer.

Woman-founded, organic granola bar company Kate’s Real Food is debuting its gluten-free white chocolate macadamia bar this month. The bars will be available on the company website, Amazon.com and on Delta Air Line flights.

“These bars provide a rich, smooth and nutty flavor that has long been a consumer favorite,” said Michelle McAndrews, director of marketing and e-commerce at Kate’s Real Food.

While very few things will beat the morning Biscoff cookies that airlines like American Airlines and Delta provide, some of the recent afternoon snacks have truly piqued our interest. Want to know which snacks to indulge in and which ones to skip the next time you travel? Here's our ranking of the 13 worst to best complimentary afternoon U.S. airline snacks on flights right now.

"This small, calorically dense bar has two servings per package that add up to around 260 calories, yet it remains incredibly light and airy in your mouth. The texture is all fresh crunch, with no sticky gooiness to get stuck in your teeth and not a hint of unnatural, powdery aftertaste. This is also the only bar we tested that has 100% organic ingredients."

Inexpensive, mass-produced single-use plastics promised to be more hygienic and to keep food fresher longer, but created its own nightmare: waste that can take as long as 1,000 years to degrade.

Now, numerous food manufacturers are working on eco-friendly packaging – made out of such materials as corn starch, cane sugar pulp and calcium carbonate – to cut down on waste.

As professional snackers, it’s our job to sample as many snacks as we can get our cheese-dusted fingers on — and we take that job very, very seriously. We tasted our way through dozens of bags, boxes, bars, and cans to find the most exciting snacks on shelves right now.

What we love most about these bars is their familiar soft chew that rivals the best homemade energy bars. They’re so good, in fact, that Patty had one on a flight and then saved the wrapper so she could remember the brand. A photo just wouldn’t do this bar justice!