New Kind Bars Count as 2 Servings of Fruit

What's a more convenient snack than a portable piece of fruit? A snack bar made with said portable piece of fruit, perhaps. 

Kind Snacks is banking on it. The company recently launched a type of bar that strays from its standard fruit, nut and drizzled-in-chocolate protein bar and is going back to basics with a line called Pressed by Kind that mixes fruit and vegetables with healthy ingredients like chia seeds. 

The bars come in five flavors: Apricot Pear Carrot Beet, Pineapple Coconut Chia, Pineapple Banana Kale Spinach, Mango Apple Chia and Cherry Apple Chia. 

The snack bars, which made their way onto store shelves this summer, contain one cup of fruit per bar (which equates to two servings of fruit), have no added sugars and boast just five ingredients or less. Surprisingly, each bar contains a little more than 100 calories. In a marketplace that shells out junk foods that are sold under the pretense of healthy, Kind's new product may very well be a welcomed one.

The struggle is real: While eating plain produce as it comes is pretty simple (wash, bite, chew), 87% of Americans don't meet veggie intake requirements and 76% don't meet their fruit intake requirements, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Fruit's contribution to health is not some concept that's simply been peddled by food marketers, nor is it some old wives' tale. New research shows that upping your fruit intake is correlated with a boost in happiness levels. It's also well known for a long time that the pretties in the produce aisle contribute to a long list of other health benefits. 

Pressed by Kind could help consumers hit their daily intake requirements — no washing required. 

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