Review and Analysis of Rhythm108 Chocolate Orange Bars
Introduction
I have recently reviewed the gorgeous Rhythm108 bars after taking them on a challenging winter expedition to remote parts of Putorana Mountains, an extremely isolated region of Central Siberia (check this review here). Since then, Rhythm108 released a new Orange taste. As I do exploratory projects in remote mountains not only in winter but also in summer, I decided to make these new Orange bars the nutritious cornerstone of my summer project on the Anabar Plateau in the high Arctic of Siberia (check some photos from this expedition here). In summary, I did not regret the decision – the new bars are, like all the other Rhythm108 tastes, plain exquisite.
Let’s start with what these new bars have in common with other variants. Here, everything stays the same: they’re amazingly tasty, nutritious, calorific, and effectively portioned. At nearly 580 calories per 100 grams, they’re essentially reaching the maximum of what you can achieve in terms of calorific density – going beyond that would require essentially just putting in pure fat, and damaging the taste.
While in winter I was using sledges and skis, in summer, I carry a (usually heavy, think 30+ kg) backpack, covering hundreds of kilometers across very rough terrain (swamps, fields of unstable boulders and stones, dense and swampy forests, violent rivers). During such expeditions, it is even more critical than in winter to minimize weight. Thanks to the very high amount of calories in Rhythm108 bars, I was able to noticeably reduce the backpack weight, while keeping the daily calory intake high enough to prevent my body from losing its own fat reserves too fast. In addition to this, the rich and diverse ingredients of the Rhythm108 bars, as well as the fact that all these ingredients are natural (e.g., no artifial sugar), means that I can additionally save weight because I need to take fewer supplements such as vitamines.
What is new in the orange bars, is of course the orange taste. Here, I was very positively surprised – it does taste in a completely different way than, for example, the almond bars, but the new taste is also exquisite. The rich orange cocoa filling with oats and amaranth make these bars taste less like a chocolate snack and a bit more like a refreshing oats-fruit bar. It is definitely a positive addition to the already diverse Rhythm108 offer.
Another feature that unexpectendly makes the bars handy for a summer expedition to the Arctic or Subarctic, is their relatively small portioning (a single bar is 33g). Why does it matter? Well, northern regions (all of them, not just the mountains) are full of mosquitoes in summer. This makes most of activities quite clumsy – you really don’t want these nasty bugs to bite your face, thus you try to always wear the mosquito net. This works well for most of the time. However, during the break, you still want to enjoy the mosquito-free face. To achieve this, I learnt how to eat snacks with my hands inside the net. The small size of R8 bars just makes it easier.
To summarize, Rhythm108 Chocolate Orange bars offer the best of what one would expect from expedition snacks: they are highly nutritious, dense in calories, handily packaged, and – of course – absolutely gorgeous.
More information
More information is available at the Rhythm108 website:
https://rhythm108.com/product-category/swiss-chocolate-bars/