Nut-Free New York

I like granola bars, but it’s tough to find brands that don’t put nuts in every other one of their products. Most of the companies without “may contain” warnings on their labels are those with decidedly nut-free facilities—and in my experience, most nut-free facilities that handle granola are free of the rest of the top 8 allergens, too. That’s great, of course, for those with lots of food allergies, but it isn’t quite ideal for those who are only allergic to nuts. Foregoing nuts doesn’t tend to make a product taste funny—but sacrificing wheat, dairy, egg, or soy? Another matter entirely.

In case you can’t tell where I’m going with this: MadeGood‘s granola is free from the top 8 allergens, so it wasn’t as though I had the urge to drop everything and run to the store the second I heard about their granola. Still, a granola bar is a granola bar—and I do like to support allergen-free companies—so when I came across their logo on a trip to Whole Foods, I figured I’d give MadeGood a try.

They make granola bars and granola minis (basically bars in ball form) in five flavors: chocolate chip, mixed berry, strawberry, chocolate banana, and apple cinnamon. I ended up with the chocolate banana minis—I would’ve gone with strawberry, but there were none in sight—and they were better than I expected, which says approximately nothing, seeing as it’s typically a bad idea to expect much at all from allergen-free products. They were all right, though—chewy with a nice banana flavor—but definitely overpriced, at almost $5 for a box of 4 small pouches, each containing maybe 10 bite-sized granola balls.

Really, all I can say is that they’re passable. They aren’t egregiously gluten-free, but they do have a bit of that tellingly dusty wheatless texture to them. I did like their chewiness, though, and the banana didn’t taste artificial in the slightest—so maybe I’ll buy them again one day. (Probably not. They’re overpriced.)

Find them at Whole Foods and maybe Costco, if you’re lucky.