A few weeks ago I received an email from Ethan over at Level Foods. Even after my last unique review of their glucose gels, they wanted me to explore their new offerings in a review. I don’t often do these things, I just don’t always have the time, plus I do feel almost inclined to give a GOOD review, even if I don’t like what I am reviewing. So I am always honest when someone asks me to look at something. I will do my best but no promises.

So anyway, I a box showed up pretty quickly at my door step filled with some pretty awesome things to sample.

Both the bars and the snacks can be used for anything, although if you read the boxes, they suggest snackage or even breakfast or lunch type meals. So I was more than happy to give them a shot at breakfast. Since I seem to have quirky breakfast cereal problems (which I am slowly resolving) I figured this would be the best thing to do.

So over the course of a few days I experimented with a breakfast of a bar and a shake. How did things react and respond? We’ll get to that in a few minutes. Let’s talk about the tastes first.

Out of the flavors of bars your choices currently are: Caramel Chocolate Peanut or Chocolate Peanut Crunch. Both bars had the same texture, which was pretty crunchy. I like crunchy. Flavor wise, they were both pretty good. I did like the Carmel Chocolate Peanut better. I think with the added caramel the bar was less dry. Not that the bars were dry, but the caramel added a little extra perks to the bar. I really enjoyed it. If I had a choice I would stick with the Carmel Chocolate Peanut over the Chocolate Peanut Crunch. It just tasted better to me. However, if I only had one or the other in my cabinet, I would not hesitate to eat either of them.

With the shakes, once again you have a choice of two flavors: Vanilla or Chocolate. Once again, both sets of shakes were pretty good. I had an obvious favorite here, which I would always go for. I really liked the Vanilla. I am still trying to figure out what the taste of the shake reminded me of. I am torn between rice pudding or tapioca. I am torn the next time I have one to sprinkle a little cinnamon on the shake, one for the obvious cinnamon benefits, but also because that might help me figure out which taste the shake reminded me of. The Chocolate was reminiscent of the little cartons of chocolate milk you got in school. Sometimes really awesome, sometimes just not your thing. It tasted a little sweet for me at times. I liked it, but I would most likely stick with buying the Vanilla.

Your flavor preferences may vary… HA, see what I did there?

Anyway, the only complaint I had with the shakes is that at times I had issues opening the lids. Not the actual turn the tops. That’s not rocket science, but out of the 8 shakes, 2 of them did not open the little foil seal underneath. So that was weird. Otherwise no issues. I was pretty happy.

As for how did my sugars play with the shakes and bars. Pretty darn good. I only have one picture of proof to show how my numbers handled everything.

I wish I had more, but I was playing with the level when my CGM died. So I was kinda hampered in my showcasing the varied results or honestly the not so varied results of the Level foods. I bolused for the proper carbs and BG using my bolus calculator each time. In the picture above I had breakfast around 8:10. Not really all that much of a change from the rest of the day. This was pretty much the effect each time I did the breakfast game. So I was happy with it. Is this the same for everybody? Probably not. Yet, is this the intended effect? I would assume so.

Anyway on a scale of 1 – 10 rating each product on taste I would rate things as follows:

Bars

Caramel Peanut Chocolate – 9

Chocolate Peanut Crunch – 7

Shakes

Vanilla – 9

Chocolate – 6

Why no 10? Everything can stand to be better. There is no perfect food out there.

Anyway, I can only suggest you give the bars and shakes a shot. Don’t blame me if your opinions are different. I can’t say how your taste buds would receive these foods. Look at people and their glucose tab preferences, we are all nuts. Anyway, if you are interested in giving the bars or shakes a shot you can order them online and I am sure they are available at some local pharmacies or Target.

Because I like you, well not really because Ethan wants you give the products a shot there is a promo code below to use to save some money on a purchase of $20 or more.

Not to shabby.

Also, you do have a chance to win a Premier Bundle of stuff which is apparently a $60.00 value.

Now after reading all of this, I’m sure you are wondering how you can win this awesome prize. It’s simple next week is Thanksgiving, so I am sure you have so much to be grateful for. Even though Turkey Day always ducks with ones will power and sugars, it only makes sense you would want to level things off post Thanksgiving. So you have until next Thursday night, 11:59 PM to leave a comment of what you are thankful for this year, either d-related or not. I will take all of the comments and their owners and pull a winner from there. If you win I will contact you for information and stuff, so make sure you give me a way to track you down, either via email or twitter. This contest is limited to those in the U.S. though, sorry. Sending food abroad through customs and such is a pain in the butt.

Disclaimer: I was contacted by Level Foods asked to consider giving a review of their products. Either good or bad, it didn’t matter. I was provided with samples of their product to well sample. That was the only thing given to me. There is no financial benefit or compensation to me for having provided this review. I did this of my own free will. They know the risks of dealing with me and my writing style.

** The giveaway contest is now closed. Thank you all who participated. I took all the names and put them on a list. I randomly assigned numbers to each person. Using Random.org a number was generated and the winner was “Gogogone”. I sent you an email, if you for some reason did not get it let me know. Thanks. ~Brian **