We first discovered Don’t Go Nuts while on a family trip to Buffalo, New York. I was looking for Sunbutter and found a whole allergen-free section at my grandmother’s grocery store, which really made my day! I bought several bars for us to try, and then got a box of our favorite (Whitewater Chomp) for our visit to Niagara Falls. I find it slightly ironic that I had to go to Buffalo to find them, considering that Don’t Go Nuts is a fellow Colorado company!

But regardless, Don’t Go Nuts has been a boon to our family ever since! Despite the apparent explosion in allergy-friendly bars in the last few years (if you know where to look,) Don’t Go Nuts is still our family’s favorite. We offer bars as a quick breakfast on rushed mornings, and I have to ration out the Don’t Go Nuts bars so our kids don’t eat them all at once. Our boys really like them THAT much more than all the others!

So I was excited for the opportunity to be among the first to try the re-launched Don’t Go Nuts bars!

Don’t Go Nuts made several changes with their re-launch. The most exciting of which is that they now received a USDA Organic Certification! To get this, 95% or more of the ingredients must be organic. In a world with increasing concerns about GMO foods, this is always nice to see!

They also made adjustments to increase whole grains and reduce sugar. The size of the bars has also been reduced from 1.58oz to 1.26oz. While a size reduction may not seem like an improvement, they aren’t too much smaller and this aligns their bars to the “kids bar” category and allows them to meet the federal requirements for a “Smart Snacks in Schools” designation!

Don’t Go Nuts currently has three flavors of their bars (they eliminated a few others last year.)

Whitewater Chomp has been my favorite since the beginning. It’s also Zax’s favorite, and is liked by all members of the family. And it has genuine white chocolate in it! (It’s not officially white chocolate unless it contains cocoa butter. A lot of so-called commercial “white chocolate” is just oil, milk, and sugar. Yes, I’m a white chocolate snob!)

 

Gorilla Power does not contain coconut but has a distinctive coconut flavor. It also has chocolate chips. This bar is Dean and Kal’s favorite.

 

 

Finally, Blueberry Blast underwent the biggest change, as the recipe has been revamped to be entirely dairy free. Most Don’t Go Nuts products contain dairy and soy, so this is a nice option now for people with dairy allergies!

You may notice that the ingredient label for the Blueberry bars has a cross contact warning for dairy. I asked them to clarify what protocols they follow to reduce cross contact risk, because these warnings seldom tell the whole story. Their response:

We use Good Manufacturing Practices with thorough cleaning and inspections between each product.

Everyone’s comfort level with different amounts of cross contact risk is different, so use this information to make your own decision if you have a dairy allergy.

As it happens, we still had some Whitewater Chomp and Gorilla Power bars in the house, so we were able to do a direct comparison between the old and new formulations of those bars. We hadn’t had Blueberry Blast in a while so we couldn’t compare old and new, so we just did a general taste-test of those.

You can see from the pictures that the drizzle is gone, and the bars are a bit smaller.

We did a “family tasting” evening to get everyone’s opinions!

So what’s the verdict?

Our kids are funny. One stated “the old ones are better but they taste the same.”

What does that mean? Well, I think the kids miss the drizzle just a tad. Hubby and I both agreed that the drizzle imparted a little more intense of a chocolate/white chocolate flavor to the bars–but as the kids noted, they mainly taste the same. Without the drizzle, you can taste the underlying bar a bit better.

In the case of Gorilla Power, you can taste the (coconut-free) coconut flavoring a bit more–which Hubby thinks is a big plus! I’m not a fan of coconut, so this is still my least favorite bar, but I don’t think the flavoring is overpowering. Zax said he liked the new Gorilla Power bar 101% (and he usually doesn’t like coconut-flavored things.) Kal, for whom this is always his favorite, drew a smiley face with a big, toothy smile when I asked him to rate the new bar.

The kids aren’t usually fans of fruit-flavored bars, so their response to Blueberry Blast wasn’t quite as high. Kal drew a face with a flat line for a mouth–he neither liked it nor didn’t like it. Zax said he liked it 95%, which is pretty good for him with something fruit-flavored that isn’t fruit.

Hubby and I both thought the Blueberry Blast bar was really good! The blueberry flavor is present throughout (rather than just in little bursts), which we think is a big plus.

As for Whitewater Chomp, we miss the bigger bites of white chocolate throughout, but it still got raving reviews from everyone. Kal drew another giant smiley face, Zax said he loved it infinity percent, and Hubby and I both agree it tastes very good. Still my favorite flavor!

These new Don’t Go Nuts bars are starting to ship to retailers this month, so look for them as soon as your local stores run through their old stock. You can also order them through the Don’t Go Nuts website and on Amazon. (As of the time of posting, I’m only seeing the new Blueberry bars on Amazon, the other listings seem to still be the old bars.)

Disclosure: We received these (new) bars for free in exchange for our honest opinion, and some links in this article are affiliate links, meaning if you click them we may receive a commission. All opinions stated are our own.

We hope these changes help the Don’t Go Nuts brand in general, because we truly love their products!