Crunching his way through a Clif Crunch Bar

Let me confess, I've never been a big fan of nutrition bars. The more I get into health and fitness the more I hear about bars. There are some serious discussions out there about nutrition bars. I've read them, and I've even taken the next step numerous times. Trying them. Lots of them, and here's the thing. I don't like them.
I've always had an issue with the weird texture, the cost, and the fact that it just seems really odd to me that here I am trying to swallow something I'm really not enjoying, at a price I don't like, to basically add calories (and protein,etc) to my day ... when I've spent my entire life trying to avoid calories.
Recently this all changed.
know this is shocking to say about a child of mine, but Matthew, my 8 year old is underweight because he doesn't eat enough and what he does eat is burned off by activity. (I wish I had this problem). I'm not complaining. But, when you're doctor tells you she's concerned ... it's an issue.
Matt would happily live on fruits and vegetable with the occassional hotdog and jawbreaker thrown in for variety. (yuck). He also likes granola bars.
As a parent, I generally don't. As he is being encouraged to eat more, I'm hesitant to give him a box of junk to increase his calorie intake. And, if they are in the house, my daughter (who does not need to add weight) will also eat them.
Many granola bars are packed with sugar, over processed and aren't filling. I have a hard time justifying giving my child a smores bar covered in chocolate and calling it a healthy snack.
While I was researching bar options, I received an email offering a sample of the new Clif Crunch Bar.
So, we tried Clif Bars, specifically the Clif Crunch Granola bar. Imagine my surprise when both of my kids gobbled them up (they come in 2 packs), and asked to have another one the next day.
That's a thumbs up from Matt.

There are a bunch of flavours - chocolate chip, white chocolate macadamia nut, and blueberry crisp are the ones we tried. Both of my kids way preferred the blueberry, which kind of surprised me, but they were really good.
These bars are slightly different than some of the other Clif products you may have tried - they are lighter on some of the added nutritional stuff so I'm okay with my kids enjoying them. The crunch part made it tolerable for me as well, so let's just say it's kind of a "gateway" nutritional bar - and a lot healthier than some of the stuff out there.
When I say these bars are healthy, here's what I liked - they are trans-fat free and don't contain high fructose corn syrup, artificial flavours or preservatives. The ones we tried were samples, but luckily we can buy them by the box at Bulk Barn, among other places and we plan to.
The downside to these bars? They are also pricier than some other bars. Bars come in packages of 2, and there are 5 two-packs per box. The boxes are $4.99 each. 
I don't believe they are peanut-free and nut-free, and even if they are they aren't labelled as such, so my kids can't bring them to school. This is not something I worry about at home, I'm not too concerned about that. We eat a lot of snacks on the go, and Matt tends to want to snack on this kind of stuff in the evening anyway. So ... the peanut thing isn't an issue in our house.
All in all we have a new healthy snack and a happy kid.
Thumbs up all around!