Kate's Real Food Peanut Butter Milk Chocolate Tram Bar

Kate's Real Food bars are among my favorite bars and the Peanut Butter Milk Chocolate Tram Bar is the original. The bars come in eight tasty flavors—from classic combos like peanut butter and chocolate to lemon coconut and ginger—with clever names. The bars are made with organic, whole food ingredients, and are a standard size—easy to stow away in a backpack or pocket for snack time outdoors. I eat them skiing, hiking, and camping year-round.

Kate's Flavors

Kate's Real Food bars come in eight flavors and are made with organic, whole food ingredients that provide a good hit of long-lasting energy on the trail or mountain. The bars are made with sweet-and-savory recipes of ingredients like organic peanut butter and sea salt, organic almond butter and organic coconut, organic sesame seeds and organic raisins.

The original bar and a favorite of mine is the Peanut Butter Milk Chocolate Tram Bar. This classic flavor combo is always a tasty option. It has oats, honey, peanut butter, milk chocolate, brown rice crisps, dried apricots, raisins, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, and sea salt.

If you asked me if I like raisins, I'd say "meh." If you asked me if I like this bar, I'd say "yes!" Founder Kate Schade knows what she's doing with her recipes.

Kate's offers an expanding line of flavors, with each bar having a unique mix of flavors and textures. 

• Peanut Butter Dark Chocolate Grizzly Bar—This dark chocolate version is nearly similar to the one above, except for the chocolate level. And you can't go wrong with peanut butter-chocolate in my opinion.
• Dark Chocolate Cherry & Almond Handle Bar—The Handle Bar (ha ha) is another favorite with its dried cherries and dark chocolate. It has almond butter (instead of peanut butter) and almonds in its base.
• Peanut Butter Hemp & Flax Stash Bar—As the name says, this bar has hemp and flax seeds. It's good, but not my favorite due to its texture.
• Mango Coconut Tiki Bar—I generally do not like coconut, and yet I will eat and enjoy these next two bars for their sweet fruit flavors. They offer a welcome change from the usual chocolate and/or peanut butter bars.
• Lemon Coconut & Ginger Bivy Bar—I ate and enjoyed this bar before realizing I was eating coconut. It's that good.
• Dark Chocolate Mint—The mint bar came out earlier this year and is my daughter's favorite. It's refreshing and I'd recommend it to anyone who likes mint and chocolate
• Oatmeal Cranberry & Almond—This is a new flavor! I haven't tried it yet, but I will...

Taste is personal, so I would encourage anyone to try different flavors to find their favorites. I'd start with a Combo Pack if you can't find Kate's bars at your local store (I can't).

My one negative point is that the two newest flavors (Dark Chocolate Mint and Oatmeal Cranberry & Almond) didn't get punny bar names. I'm a little disappointed...

Ingredients and Nutrition

Here's what Kate's says about its bars:

At Kate’s, we believe that what you eat matters. That’s why we use only clean ingredients in all our products. From organic gluten-free oats to organic dark chocolate, we want each bite to contain the best-quality, best-tasting, healthiest foods we can get our hands on.

This means no chemicals and no artificial sweeteners. To satisfy your sweet tooth, Kate’s prefers organic fruits--like dried cherries or dried mango--and all natural honey (our sweetener-of-choice). In other words, we keep it simple: only whole foods with great texture and ingredients you recognize.

I dislike calling certain foods "clean," but I appreciate Kate's use of whole food, organic ingredients, with no chemicals and no artificial sweeteners. You can taste the different ingredients and textures in each bar.

Check the labels on your specific bar, especially if you have dietary restrictions, but Kate's bars are:

• gluten free
• USDA organic
• and one is soy free (Dark Chocolate Mint)

Each bar is two servings, so they range from 240 (Peanut Butter Hemp & Flax) to 320 (Dark Chocolate Mint) calories per bar.

Use

I first tried Kate's Real Food bars when they launched a decade ago, immediately loved them, and have continued eating them as the flavor options have grown.

They are sturdy bars you can take hiking, camping, mountain biking, or wherever your outdoor adventures take you, but they don't freeze into a solid brick in winter, like some bars do. If you keep one in a pocket or bag for too long they will crumble a bit, but food shouldn't be impervious in my opinion.

I often have a Kate's bar in my pocket while skiing, since they stay edible and tasty in cold temperatures. I'm not alone since founder Kate first made the Tram Bar for ski days in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

They also make good gifts for the outdoors person you don't know what to buy. I bought my family assorted boxes of these and other bars last Christmas to keep us fueled while skiing during Covid and avoiding the base lodge. My favorites continue to include Kate's bars and Honey Stinger Cracker Bars and Waffles.

Recommendation

If you haven't tried a Kate's Real Food bar before I recommend sampling several, such as in a Combo Pack, so you can find what flavors you like best. Chocolate and peanut butter is a popular starting point, but branch out to the full range of flavors for more interesting options.

The bars are pricey at $3 each retail, but if you buy a 12-pack each bar will cost $2.50. Kate's bars are tasty, offer a variety of flavor combos, and provide a good amount of easy, portable energy while you're outdoors skiing, mountain biking, or hiking.

Background

I eat food. Daily. I have purchased, eaten, and sampled many, many outdoor energy and recovery bars over the years from generic granola bars to products from Kate's Real Food, Honey Stinger (another favorite), Clif, Luna, ProBar, Kind, Scratch, R.E.D.D., RxBar, Bonk Breaker, Larabar, and loads of others.