I was in a rush and I needed to pick up a quick snack that I could eat during class. I chose these Nature Valley bars which said they had ten bars inside. What I failed to notice is the tiny print at the bottom where it says 5 x 2, i.e., 5 packets with two bars.
Lo and behold when I open a pack during a break, I find two bars inside. I didn’t want to eat two bars, just one. You can’t even just leave the other fucking bar inside because they create so MANY crumbs. How the fuck are you supposed to seal it???
Stupid-ass deceptive printing got the better of me. It’s not the end of the world, just mildly infuriating.
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I hate these bars, I have no idea how anyone tolerates eating it anywhere indoors.
Honey Oats & GetTheVacuum
I have a buddy who prefers these over the chewy dipped versions and I can confirm he is a pyschopath
It’s easy. Do what the other commenter said and break them before opening. They suggest in half, I prefer in thirds. Then after you eat the solid pieces you dump the crumbs into your mouth. If they made them less crumbly, I don’t think they’d be as good.
Nah the secret is to push just enough out of the wrapper to have a bite and let the crumbs fall down into the wrapper, and repeat until you only have crumbs. Same with the second bar. Then just pour the crumbs into your mouth.
Too risky. I’d rather have bite size pieces than try to catch the crumbs in the tiny wrapper
The easiest way to consume them is to wack them a couple times with your palm and then just pour the dust directly into your mouth.
Or better, put the pack in the bottom of your backpack and at lunchtime pour the whole smashed bag of crumbs into a little tub of yogurt and eat it with a spoon 🥄
The secret is to dip them in coffee or tea.
The secret is to not buy them if you ask me.
Not discounting your mild infuriation, but I am 100% certain that if they switched to being individually wrapped tomorrow, a complaint about excessive packaging would be one of the top posts here.
I’m not sure about Germany, but these have been sold in the US for decades now, and have always been 2 bars per wrapper as long as I can remember.
… I am 100% certain that if they switched to being individually wrapped tomorrow, a complaint about excessive packaging would be one of the top posts here.
You’re undeniably right. The best situation would be to not have any wrapping at all… but with the crumb situation, that’d be another top post here :/
I’m all for reduxcing packaging but…ewww I’m not eating these from an unsealed box. Bugs love the crumbs…I can imagine they’d love the full bars, too. Not to mention rodents.
The box would have to be fully resealable, too, or they’d be gross so they’d need to replace the cardboard with plastic
so like just put them in resealable plastic bags, that’s a better use of the plastic than 5 small packages and means you don’t need the cardboard either!
To make them not turn to dust in transit, they’d need to be in a hard shell sleeve wrapped in plastic like Oreos…and they’d still likely get crushed a bit.
I’m not a packaging engineer but that seems like more plastic with little added benefit
They sell it without individual wrappers, it’s just müsli.
I am rather surprised that OP expected 10 “large” bars. He wanted to eat 1 large bar, but instead just acted like a child with 2 small bars (2 small bars = 1 large bar). Complaining for bullshit reasons.
I am also sure that 2 small bars would weigh less than 1 large bar.
To be fair, this post is pretty much the epitome of mildly infuriating.
I realize that my answer was wrong and ignorant. I also disregarded the fact that OP could be assuming 10 small individually wrapped bars.
I hate weasel word bs like this
Outsmart them by breaking each bar in half. Now you have 20 bars without spending a penny more!
That’s how they’ve always been sold.
For the rest of the box, break the bars in half (while still in the wrapper) and eat the two top halves for the equivalent of one bar. The you can wrap up the remaining halves more securely.
Lol this was one of the earlier nature valley bar, before their single packed one. They were around 15 years ago at least. Always been packed per 2 with the hope that you will just eat 2 at a time
Your failure was not getting the Sweet and Salty Peanut chewy granola bar. Damn good!
I noticed recently (though I doubt it’s new) that pop tarts are labeled that way too.
When the first flavors of Pop-Tarts were released in 1964 (strawberry, blueberry, apple currant, and brown sugar cinnamon), the packaging machines were expensive, resulting in hefty up-front costs. So, to be economical about their investments, the company decided to package the product in twos at the start (explained in the book “Better Than Homemade: Amazing Foods that Changed the Way We Eat” by Carolyn Wyman).
“To package them singly would have required twice as many machines. Kellogg’s didn’t want to invest in a lot of machines until they knew how it would sell," said Bill Post, who managed the first plant to produce Pop-Tarts.
https://www.allrecipes.com/why-are-pop-tarts-packaged-in-twos-8347034
Not a new thing at all
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That’s just weird… If they thought one bar wouldn’t be enough then why not just make the bars bigger? Is it still even a “healthy snack” if you have to cram them down 2 at a time? It reminds me of the time I was checking the info on the back of a packet of Top Ramen and it said it’s supposed to be like 2 or 3 servings. Like was I supposed to share it with someone? Lol
it’s supposed to be like 2 or 3 servings.
That’s so the sodium content seems reasonable.
That’s so the
sodiumsugar content seems reasonable.
The US has a lot of bullshit in their labeling requirements. My wife studied food science in university and some of her biggest complaints are:
- Serving sizes aren’t always the entire package*
- “Natural” has almost no meaning on a package, it is just a hand-waving word
- They can hide a lot of things in the ingredients under umbrella terms like “spices” and “flavorings”
- “Made with real juice” does not mean it was made with the juice on the label. For example, a pineapple fruit juice may be more apple juice than actually pineapple juice
- They can round down to 0 calories if the actual amount is below 5
The most egregious example I’ve seen lately was a jar of pickles I bought where the serving size is 1/3 of a pickle (now the website says 1/2). That’s just so that the sodium doesn’t get out of control and, in all likelihood, because an entire pickle may be more than the 5 Calories allowed to say it’s “0 Calories”.
*This is changing, slowly. Manufacturers now have to put servings for the entire container if it’s small enough
“Natural” has almost no meaning on a package, it is just a hand-waving word
That’s partially because it’s useless in general, of course it’s natural, where else would you get it from? Every atom from a particle accelerator colision?!
“Made with real juice” does not mean it was made with the juice on the label. For example, a pineapple fruit juice may be more apple juice than actually pineapple juice
This gave rise to an amusing misunderstanding in our house. My wife asked for “Cranberry Juice, but 100% juice, not the cocktail; that’s too sweet.” I dutifully went to our store and found the Cranberry Juice cocktail, and also the juice that was mostly apple and white grape juice, because that’s always what they use here when they can. I thought, surely this must be very nearly as sweet, and kept looking. I eventually found the small, expensive bottle of 100% cranberry juice with no other juices and no sugar added.
This was a mistake.
Pure cranberry juice is not popular as a casual beverage for a reason. It is nasty. It tastes like I imagine the least dangerous acid kept behind the counter at the chemistry lab supply company tastes: safe for human consumption, but just barely and definitely deserving to be there behind the counter.
Are you sure you didn’t get the concentrate?
Pretty sure. It was a 32 oz bottle on the same shelf as all the cocktails and blends.
Now, to be fair, some people do recommend cutting pure cranberry juice with seltzer or water, but it was not specifically a concentrate.
I actually like the taste of pure cranberry juice, but it’s too expensive to buy just for drinking so I mostly end up drinking half the bottle while I cook holiday meals after I’ve started the cranberry sauce
Possibly they can’t be made thicker due to the cooking process?
They’re pretty hard. I wouldn’t want to try to bite through a double thick one personally.
It wouldn’t necessarily have to be double thick, they could just make it longer or wider across or both
You’re eating them wrong obviously. Smash it with your fist, pour it out in a neat line, and snort it like you mean business. Bonus points if done in public.
They have always been packaged that way in the US. The peanut butter ones somewhat mitigate the crumb situation.
I don’t think it’s a problem that it’s 2 bars in each package, but it should say 5 packages rather than 10 bars. The company knows what they’re doing.
Ha I once fell for this same issue with the exact same bars. To be fair they’re so darn tasty I’ve fallen for it again several times since!
That packaging surely caused Doppel Trouble.
I would tell you to grow a pair BUT the fact that they go stale in like 15 minutes….
This is the type of complaint you would expect a granola bar eater to have.
