What Is No Cow Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Protein Bar?
No Cow built its entire brand identity around one pitch: a plant-based protein bar with real protein numbers, not the 4-6 grams you get from a granola bar wearing a "protein" label. Its Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip bar is one of the line's most popular flavors, and on paper it's a genuinely strong spec — 20 grams of protein, 16 grams of fiber, and just 1 gram of sugar in a 60-gram bar, all from a brown rice and pea protein blend rather than whey or casein.
The bigger question is whether hitting those numbers required sacrificing everything else a bar needs to be — taste, texture, and the ability to actually finish one without a glass of water on standby. That's what we're digging into here, alongside how it stacks up against two of its closest plant-based competitors, GoMacro and Aloha.
Ingredients
The full ingredient list for the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip bar: Protein Blend (Brown Rice Protein, Pea Protein), Soluble Corn Fiber, Glycerine, Peanuts, Chocolate Chips (Chocolate Liquor, Erythritol, Vegetable Protein [Pea, Canola], Cocoa Butter, Sunflower Lecithin, Vanilla Extract), Peanut Flour, Water, Salt, Sweetener Blend (Erythritol, Stevia Leaf Reb M, Monk Fruit), Cocoa Butter, Natural Flavor.
A few things stand out. First, the sweetener blend is entirely sugar-alcohol and steviol-glycoside based — no cane sugar, no brown rice syrup, no honey — which is how the bar lands at 1 gram of sugar without tasting chalky the way some ultra-low-sugar bars do. Second, the fiber load (16 grams) comes primarily from soluble corn fiber, a common functional fiber in low-sugar bars that can cause digestive discomfort in larger amounts for some people, especially if you're not used to high-fiber snacks. Third, there's no soy protein isolate anywhere in the formula — the protein is entirely brown rice and pea, which matters for anyone specifically avoiding soy on top of avoiding animal protein. If you want to check any of these ingredients against a broader animal-derived-ingredients list before buying, the spvegan.com ingredient checker covers exactly that kind of line-by-line lookup.
Is No Cow Vegan?
Yes. The Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip bar, and the No Cow line generally, is formulated without any animal-derived ingredients — the protein blend is brown rice and pea rather than whey or casein, and the chocolate chips use cocoa butter and sunflower lecithin rather than milk fat or dairy-derived emulsifiers. No Cow bars are also Certified Gluten-Free, Non-GMO Project Verified, kosher, and soy-free, though it's worth noting the label carries a "produced on equipment that also processes soy, milk, wheat, egg, and other tree nuts" allergen statement — standard shared-facility language rather than an indication of animal ingredients in the formula itself, but worth knowing if you're managing a strict allergy alongside a vegan diet.
Nutrition Facts: No Cow vs. GoMacro vs. Aloha
All three brands make a peanut butter chocolate chip flavor, which makes for a clean apples-to-apples comparison on the numbers that actually differ between plant-based protein bars: protein content, sugar, fiber, and where the protein and sweetness actually come from.
| Brand (PB Chocolate Chip flavor) | Calories | Protein | Sugar | Fiber | Fat | Protein Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No Cow | 190 | 20g | 1g | 16g | 5g | Brown rice protein, pea protein |
| GoMacro MacroBar | 290 | 11g | 8g (7g added) | 2g | 10g | Sprouted brown rice protein, pea protein |
| Aloha | ~250-260 | 14g | ~5-13g (varies by listing/formulation) | ~3-10g (varies by listing/formulation) | ~13-14g | Organic pea protein, pumpkin seed protein |
No Cow is a clear outlier on raw protein-per-calorie efficiency — 20 grams of protein for 190 calories is a genuinely strong ratio in this category, and its sugar content is the lowest of the three by a wide margin. GoMacro trades protein density for a shorter, more recognizable ingredient list built around organic brown rice syrup and peanut butter rather than sugar alcohols, which is part of why it reads as more of a "whole food" bar despite the higher sugar and lower protein numbers. Aloha's figures vary somewhat between retailer listings and reformulated versions, but it generally lands in the middle on protein while using organic, less-processed ingredients as its main selling point.
Taste, Texture & Eating Experience
This is where No Cow's spec-sheet strength gets complicated. The dense fiber load and sugar-alcohol sweetener blend that make the nutrition numbers so favorable also produce a texture that reviewers consistently describe as dry, dense, and slightly mealy compared to whey-based or brown-rice-syrup-based bars. It's not inedible — the peanut butter and chocolate chip flavor does come through — but it reads more like a functional supplement than a treat, and it noticeably improves with refrigeration, which firms up the texture and mutes some of the sugar-alcohol aftertaste that erythritol and monk fruit can leave behind. If you're coming from whey protein bars or from GoMacro's softer, syrup-based texture, expect an adjustment period.
By comparison, GoMacro's texture is softer and chewier, closer to a dense granola bar, largely because it isn't leaning on sugar alcohols to hit a low-sugar number — it simply has more sugar. Aloha lands somewhere in between: less dense than No Cow, less soft than GoMacro, with a more pronounced "whole ingredient" mouthfeel from nut butters and seeds rather than a protein-blend base.
How They Compare
| Brand | Best For | Texture | Approx. Price | Key Certifications |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No Cow | Maximizing protein, minimizing sugar | Dense, dry, mealy — best refrigerated | ~$2.75/bar | Certified Gluten-Free, Non-GMO, Kosher, Soy-Free |
| GoMacro | Shorter ingredient list, softer texture | Soft, chewy, granola-bar-like | ~$2.10–$3.20/bar | Organic, Non-GMO |
| Aloha | Whole-food ingredients, mid-range protein | Moderate density, nut-butter forward | ~$2.50–$3/bar | Organic, Non-GMO, Gluten-Free |
Price & Where to Buy
No Cow bars run around $2.75 per bar in a standard 12-pack (roughly $32.99 for a box), which puts them squarely in the mid-to-upper range for protein bars generally, though in line with most plant-based specialty bars. They're carried at mainstream grocery chains including Kroger and its affiliated banners, plus Walmart and Amazon, and No Cow's own site offers a subscribe-and-save option and a sampler pack if you want to try multiple flavors — Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup, Cookies 'N Cream, Birthday Cake, and Chocolate Fudge Brownie among them — before committing to a full case of one.
Buying by the case is meaningfully cheaper per bar than grabbing singles at a grocery store checkout line, where these often run closer to $3.50-$4 each, so if you know you like the texture, the 12-pack is the better value.
A Note on the Sweetener Blend
It's worth spending an extra beat on the sweetener system here, since it's doing more work than a typical ingredient label suggests. Erythritol, stevia leaf extract (Reb M), and monk fruit are all non-nutritive sweeteners — none of them spike blood sugar the way cane sugar or brown rice syrup would, which is a genuine advantage for anyone managing glucose levels. The tradeoff shows up in two places: some people report a mild aftertaste or cooling sensation from erythritol in particular, and sugar alcohols in general can cause bloating or digestive discomfort in larger quantities, especially stacked on top of the 16 grams of soluble corn fiber already in the bar. Neither issue is universal — plenty of people eat these bars daily with no problem — but if you're new to high-fiber, sugar-alcohol-sweetened bars, easing in with one bar rather than starting a two-a-day habit is the more comfortable way to find out how your system handles it.
Who Should Buy It
No Cow makes the most sense if you're specifically shopping by the numbers — someone tracking protein intake closely, managing blood sugar, or replacing a meal-adjacent snack where 20 grams of protein and 1 gram of sugar actually matters more than how indulgent the bar feels. Gym-goers and anyone doing intermittent fasting or low-sugar/keto-adjacent eating are the most obvious fit. It's a weaker pick if you're looking for something that tastes like a treat first and a supplement second — GoMacro or a dessert-style vegan protein bar will serve that use case better. And if soluble corn fiber or sugar alcohols cause you digestive issues, it's worth starting with a single bar rather than a full case to see how you tolerate it before committing to a 12-pack.
No Cow makes the most sense if you're specifically shopping by the numbers — someone tracking protein intake closely, managing blood sugar, or replacing a meal-adjacent snack where 20 grams of protein and 1 gram of sugar actually matters more than how indulgent the bar feels. Gym-goers and anyone doing intermittent fasting or low-sugar/keto-adjacent eating are the most obvious fit. It's a weaker pick if you're looking for something that tastes like a treat first and a supplement second — GoMacro or a dessert-style vegan protein bar will serve that use case better. And if soluble corn fiber or sugar alcohols cause you digestive issues, it's worth starting with a single bar rather than a full case to see how you tolerate it before committing to a 12-pack.
Final Verdict
No Cow Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip delivers on its core promise — a genuinely high-protein, genuinely low-sugar, fully vegan bar without soy protein isolate padding out the numbers — and that spec sheet is hard to argue with. Where it loses points is the eating experience: dense, dry, and mealy enough that it's clearly built for function over indulgence, and it benefits noticeably from being eaten cold rather than at room temperature. It's a strong pick for the specific person who wants those exact numbers and doesn't mind the tradeoff, and a middling one for anyone shopping primarily on taste.
Rating: 7/10 — best-in-class protein and sugar numbers in this category, held back by a texture that won't win over anyone who isn't already sold on the spec sheet.
