SPACEBAR Goes Gluten-Free, Stays Vegan

Top: wheaty version - Bottom: tofu version

Spacebar, the vegan meaty snack bar is now available gluten-free. The Spacebar range was previously based purely on wheat protein, but the makers have now brought out a tofu version. Topas are obviously keen to broaden the market appeal of the snack bar by addressing the large gluten-free market.  We compared the tofu version with the wheaty version.

Top: wheaty version - Bottom: tofu version

The tofu recipe bar is slightly smaller, 35g instead of 40g, but you'd only notice this with the bars side-by-side. Visually, there isn't a large difference, although the wheaty bar is a little darker.

Left: wheaty version - Right: tofu version

The texture is quite a bit different in the tofu recipe. Still tough to the bite, the tofu bar is also still chewy, but has less of that meaty stringiness you get from wheat gluten. Instead the chew is slightly more rubbery and most of the bite resistance is in the outside layer. The flavour of both bars is pretty similar...that smoky, umami, meaty taste.

We like the tofu bars...but we did think the wheat version was the better of the two.

---

Footnote: Ingredients

Here are the ingredients panels from the packs we reviewed.

Web: veganoo.net   Twitter: @veganoo   Facebook: fb.com/veganoo.net   Flickr: veganoo