Are CLIF Bars Healthy?
The short answer: it depends entirely on what you are about to do. A CLIF Bar is 250 calories with 17g of sugar and 10g of protein. Ninety minutes into a ride or a hike that is well-judged fuel and exactly what the bar was built for. At your desk it is a 250 calorie snack with about four teaspoons of sugar in it.
Who is telling you this: we are SCNS Sports Foods and we make competing bars for golfers. Read the rest with that in mind. Every CLIF figure below is from their own published nutrition panel for the Chocolate Chip bar, checked on 9 October 2026, and we have not rounded anything in our favour.
What is actually in a CLIF Bar
Chocolate Chip, the flagship flavour, one bar of 2.4oz.
- 250calories
- 17gtotal sugars
- 16gadded sugars
- 10gprotein
- 43gcarbohydrate
- 5gfibre
The ingredient list opens with organic rolled oats, organic brown rice syrup, soy rice crisps and organic roasted soybeans, followed by organic tapioca syrup and organic invert cane syrup. The allergen line reads "Contains: soy. May Contain: milk, peanut, sesame, tree nuts, wheat."
Worth noticing: three of the first six ingredients are syrups. That is not a gotcha, it is how you make a bar that delivers quick carbohydrate, and it is the point of the product.
The sugar question
16g of added sugar is about 32 percent of the daily value, in one bar. For context, a standard snack-size chocolate bar is in the same range.
That comparison is usually made to make CLIF look bad, and it is not quite fair. The sugar in a CLIF Bar is doing a job: during sustained aerobic effort your body wants fast carbohydrate, and a bar that delivers it is doing what the label promises. The problem is not the formulation. It is that most CLIF Bars are not eaten during sustained aerobic effort.
When it works, and when it does not
A good choice
- Long rides, runs, hikes and climbs, during the activity
- Any effort over about ninety minutes where you need carbohydrate in
- As emergency food in a bag, because it keeps and it is calorie dense
The wrong tool
- At a desk. It was formulated as fuel, not as a snack.
- As a meal replacement. 10g of protein will not hold you.
- If you are watching added sugar for any medical reason.
- On a golf course. Four to five hours of low intensity walking, so you are not burning carbohydrate at a cyclist's rate and 16g of added sugar arrives faster than you use it.
Are CLIF Bars gluten free?
No. The soy rice crisps contain barley malt extract, and barley is a gluten grain. CLIF make a separate gluten free line, but the standard CLIF Bar is not part of it.
Are CLIF Bars vegan?
The Chocolate Chip bar contains no animal ingredients, though the allergen line notes it may contain milk, which matters if you avoid dairy strictly rather than by preference.
How they compare with what we make
Honestly, on sugar, two of our bars are not meaningfully different. The highlighted rows are the only places we can claim a real gap.
| Bar | Calories | Protein | Sugar |
|---|---|---|---|
| CLIF Bar Chocolate Chip (68g) | 250 | 10g | 17g |
| 1st Tee PLUS+ Oatmeal Raisin (60g) | 230 | 8g | 16g |
| 10th Tee PLUS+ Peanut Honey (45g) | 180 | 7g | 16g |
| 1st Tee High Protein (70g) | 220 | 16g | 3g |
| 1st Tee Beef Jerky (1oz) | 90 | 13g to 17g | 5g |
Our PLUS+ bars carry 16g of sugar against CLIF's 17g. That is not a difference worth claiming, and we are not going to claim it. They are doing a similar job to a CLIF Bar, with green tea and ginseng in the 10th Tee and chamomile and valerian root in the 1st Tee, aimed at the specific shape of a round of golf rather than at endurance sport.
If added sugar is the thing you actually care about, the honest answer is not a bar at all. It is grass-fed beef jerky at 5g of sugar and up to 17g of protein, or the high protein bar at 3g. Those are real differences. 17g against 16g is not.
So, are CLIF Bars healthy?
They are a well made energy bar with real ingredients that does what it says on the wrapper. "Healthy" is the wrong question. The right one is whether the fuel matches the effort. During a long aerobic effort, yes. Sitting still, or walking a golf course, you are better served by something with more protein and less sugar.
If you want the longer version of that argument, we wrote a guide to the best golf snacks covering what to eat and when, including plenty of things we do not sell.
Nutrition figures for CLIF are from the published US label for CLIF Bar Chocolate Chip, 2.4oz, retrieved 9 October 2026. Formulations change, so check the wrapper. CLIF and CLIF BAR are trademarks of Clif Bar & Company, which is not affiliated with and does not endorse SCNS Sports Foods.
It depends on what you are doing. A CLIF Bar is 250 calories with 17g of sugar and 10g of protein, which is well-judged fuel during a long ride, run or hike, and a lot of sugar if you are eating it at a desk. The formulation is not the problem, the match between the fuel and the effort is.
17g of total sugars, of which 16g is added sugar, in the Chocolate Chip bar. That is about 32 percent of the daily value for added sugar in one bar, which puts it in the same range as a snack-size chocolate bar.
No. The soy rice crisps in a standard CLIF Bar contain barley malt extract, and barley is a gluten grain. CLIF produce a separate gluten free range, but the original CLIF Bar is not part of it.
Not especially. Golf is four to five hours of low intensity walking, so you are not burning carbohydrate at the rate the bar was designed for, and 16g of added sugar arrives faster than you use it. Something with more protein and less sugar suits the pace of a round better.
10g per bar. That is reasonable for an energy bar but low for a meal replacement, which is why a CLIF Bar tends not to hold you for long if you eat one in place of lunch.
On ingredients, yes: it is built on organic rolled oats with fibre and protein, where a candy bar is not. On sugar the two are closer than most people expect, at 16g of added sugar per CLIF Bar.
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