How often do you find yourself rushing through your day unable to prepare a protein-packed meal? With today’s hectic lifestyle, protein bars are an essential staple for those who are fitness conscious.

Primarily, protein bars are marketed for their convenience, but they can also provide near quality protein, essential fats and quality carbohydrates to your favorite meal replacement powder or a carefully planned whole food meal. Although not an optimum choice for after a workout time and time again, meal replacement bars prove to be an indispensable tool when you are in a pinch and are in need of superior nutritional nourishment at other times of the day.

In the beginning, protein bars were mainly consumed by advanced athletes. The taste even the ones with the less desirable artificial sweeteners were not much to speak of, but ohhh how the times have definitely changed. With so many taste-bud-jolting flavors and countless varieties, protein bars are not just for the hardcore athlete forcing themselves to get them down the hatch anymore.

But, how do you know what protein bar is best for you? From pre-workout nutrition to an afternoon snack, you will now be able to choose which bar best suits your individual needs.

Introducing the Top 3 Protein Bars:

#1 Quest Bars (Natural)

Feed your taste buds on these!! Natural Quest bars with their high fiber content and lack of lower quality proteins like whey concentrate, milk concentrate, soy protein, calcium and sodium caseinate (not to mention the hidden one most people forget hydrolyzed collagen or gelatin) along with artificial sweeteners makes them highly desirable amongst protein bar consumers. Quest bars offer so many flavor options that your toughest decision would be which one to choose.

More good news is these delicious bars can also be found almost anywhere nowadays from the grocery store to your local convenient store which helped to push them right up to the #1 spot. The bar’s biggest downfall though is its great taste; you might have to hide them from your friends and family otherwise you will not have any for yourself.

#2 Kirkland (Costco)

Costco’s private label brand protein bars are quite possibly the perfect protein bars for your money. Best bang for your buck as they say. For starters they pass the key requirement of being all natural and feature a quality blend of protein consisting of top shelf whey and milk protein isolate. On top of that they taste pretty spectacular some might even say better than the Quest bars. Down side is you can only really get them at Costco so if you do not have one in your area unfortunately you have to order them online and wait for them to be shipped which can be a hassle.

#3 Fit Joy

Fit Joy is a relatively new entry to the protein bar category and sports the preferable no artificial sweeteners and ingredients tag. It also uses an outstanding protein blend and is void of soy lecithin. Although close but not as tasty as some on the list Fit Joy is still worthwhile looking into for the serious protein bar consumer. Downside though as with a lot of newer bars on the market is that these are a little hard to come by on the road. Fortunately you can get always get them at several health and nutrition stores or online.

There you have it: our top 3 quality ranked natural protein bars. You really can not go wrong with any of these on this list. Again, quality protein bars are essential for the on-the-go fitness conscious person, so keep some with you for where ever your day may take you. With so many premium quality protein bars on the market today, you are sure to find something to satisfy your taste and nutritional needs.

So what is you favorite protein bar? Post it in the comments and who knows we might have a new one on the list.