The New Millennium Energy Bar is an extremely convenient, well thought out product that merits serious consideration when preparing for an emergency. We knew Mainstay and Datrex, the two leading calorie bar providers, offered up only one flavor each but something that was apparent just minutes into our New Millennium Energy Bar Review was that these New Millenium Calorie Bars offered up some real flavor variety not found elsewhere.
The New Millennium Energy Bar is made by SOS Food Labs in Florida. Their products are sold to military organizations around the world and hold many of the same certifications that its more well known competitors do. The company has been around since the mid 80s so you can feel confident their shelf life claims are accurate as they have outlived their product. Never a bad thing in our minds.
Variety
The New Millennium Energy Bars come in a variety of flavors. We chose to tackle this first as it was what set it apart from the two big players in the calorie bar industry; Mainstay and Datrex. These companies offer one flavor each lemon and coconut respectively. When we saw that there were 9 flavors to chose from we got excited. Nothing against either lemon or coconut (we’ve tried those before) but variety is a great thing especially with picky eaters at home.
Here are the flavors of New Millennium Energy Bars:
cherry- apricot
- vanilla
- orange
- lemon
- blueberry
- raspberry
- tropical fruit
- coconut
Utility
This products is very easily carried anywhere you need to, even in what would be considered harsh conditions for food such as the trunk of your car, where the temperature varies from very hot to very low. The New Millenium Energy Bars require no heating or water to eat just open and enjoy.
The bars are also low in sodium so it is perfect for eating without water and won’t make you thirsty. Each energy/calorie bar comes individually wrapped. They each provide 400 calories. Some of the competitors have smaller bars inside their big blocks. While these are wrapped they are just covered in saran wrap so once you open the metalized foil pouch on the outside you are going to start the timer for food degradation.
Taste
At about that of a King Size candy bar, the New Millennium Energy Bars are easy to store in any emergency kit, glovebox, or any other compartment for that matter but in the end it is food and it has to be at least tolerable. So to find that out we conducted our usual taste test
The normal gang in the Anderson household, my wife and I and our 5 year old girl and 2 year old boy opened 5 different flavors. One thing you notice quickly when kids eat these is how crumbly they are, they can make a mess in no time. Though it’s important to point out this is a common occurrence with all of calorie bars we have tried.
In the end the calorie bar taste test concluded with thumbs up from all of the 4 participants. Our normally finicky kids, who are picky about what they eat, had no problem shoveling these sweet treats into their mouths. To them it was just that, a candy. For Julie and I, we liked the them all, some more than others but especially the raspberry. Most of the flavors can be on the subtle side. They didn’t load them with high levels of artificial flavoring. Instead they opted for subtle flavor notes in the cookie like candy bar. A plus in our book. Of course real fruit would be ideal but if you want shelf life some sacrifices must be made. Speaking of the devil that takes us onto…
Shelf Life
New Millennium energy bars are packaged to last for five years even in extreme conditions. You can throw them in your trunk, backpack, purse and not worry about having to rotate it or worry about spoilage for five years.
Most other products don’t maintain as long of a shelf life in such extreme conditions like these energy bars. This makes them PERFECT for bug out bags and car trunks. Normal MREs would last only a 6 months to a year in a trunk that reached 100 degrees or dropped below freezing.
These emergency calorie bars come with stamped manufacture dates at the end of the packaging. Along side are best if used by dates that are 5 years out from the date of manufacturer as seen in the image to the left.
Price
The New Millennium energy bars come in around $1.15 to 1.50 each. Other brands like Mainstay and Datrex don”t offer 400 calorie options so to get the true cost comparison you have to do some math to find out cost per calorie. Taking those brand’s smallest bars (2400 calorie bars) you come to a cost per calorie of around .0018 cents for the Mainstay and Datrex products versus .003 cents per calorie in the New Millenium calorie bars. This amounts to a 60% premium for the New Millenium brand. It sounds pricey right? Wrong…
Summary
While the Millennium Energy Bar’s premium of 60% sounds big, we think they are worth the extra change. The real cost out of pocket isn’t much, say a buck or two on a bigger purchase of calorie bars. We think the smaller portion sizes and option to pick from a wide variety of flavors easily make up for the difference. To the Anderson household it’s a no-brainer.
This concludes our New Millennium energy bar review, hope you enjoyed! What do you think? Have you tried them before? Only tried Datrex and Mainstay calorie bars, want to tell us what you thought about those? Hit up the comment section below.
The New Millennium Energy Bar is an extremely convenient, well thought out product that merits serious consideration when preparing for an emergency. We knew Mainstay and Datrex, the two leading calorie bar providers, offered up only one flavor each but something that was apparent just minutes into our New Millennium Energy Bar Review was that these New Millenium Calorie Bars offered up some real flavor variety not found elsewhere. The New Millennium Energy Bar is made by SOS Food Labs in Florida. Their products are sold to military organizations around the world and hold many of the same certifications that its more… New Millennium Energy Bar Review New Millennium Energy Bar Review Not the best bang for the buck but if you want different flavors these will far surpass Datrex and Mainstay bars.
