MNN - Mother Nature Network

Are you the TOMS shoes-wearing type — because you love that company's buy-a-pair, give-a-pair-to-a-kid-in-need business model? Then here's a snack you'll love to bite into while walking a mile in those shoes. Buy a Two Degrees snack bar, and you'll send a nutrition pack to a child in need.

 

And you won't be buying the bar just for its altruistic business model. Two Degrees bars are quite tasty (although sadly, not organic) — and pack a nutritional punch, too. My favorite was the Chocolate Peanut flavor, which combined with the raisins and prune puree, has a delicious peanut butter-and-jelly meets chocolate taste. The Apple Pecan made a good, healthier substitute for a fruit and nut pie, and the Cherry Almond had that nice tangy fruity kick.

 

 

Two Degrees' buy-one-give-one isn't quite like TOMS though. While TOMS actually gives kids in need the same TOMS shoes that you buy, Two Degrees doesn't send the bars you can buy at Whole Foods to malnourished kids. Instead, Two Degrees sends medically formulated nutrition packs.

 

 

Comparing the nutrition packs to the bars exemplifies the disparaty between the world of the bar buyers and the pack receivers — the former is a Whole Foods shopper with disposable income living in a country where being poor makes you a lot more likely to be fat; the latter is a severely malnourished child with no food, period.

 

The bars come in pretty, attractive, recycled and recyclable packaging; the packs in ugly but functional foil-lined wrappers. The bars' marketing material proudly proclaims each bar contains less than 200 calories; the nutrition pack notes on the back that each pack packs 500 calories. The bars boast that they're all natural, gluten-free, and vegan — and contain today's popular heritage grains quinoa, chia, and millet. The nutrition pack's basic, calorie-heavy ingredient list reads thusly: "milk powder, sugar, peanut paste, vegetable oil, vitamins and minerals."

 

I tasted the nutrition pack. The goo tasted just like you would expect: Sweet, milky, peanut buttery, heavy — basically a swirl of sugar and fat. Kind of like the cheapest processed foods marketed at kids at the grocery store, but without the attractive presentation, toys, and pretty packaging. One country's obesity bane, another's life-saving nutrition meal.

 

The nutrition packs aren't sold in stores, but the Two Degrees bars are. Each bar costs $2.49 at Whole Foods and other retailers, as well as on Two Degrees' website.