Elevation Pure & Simple Apple Pie and Peanut Butter Cookie Fruit & Nut Bars

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Finding healthy snacks isn’t always easy. For daily snacks, my family tries to stick with whole foods and simple foods such as fruit, nuts, yogurt, and cheese. As we’re learning more about the negative health effects of ultra-processed foods, I’ve been forgoing the snack food aisle with its potato chips, crackers, cookies, cakes, and other highly processed products.

One snack line at Aldi that I’ve found can sometimes be a little healthier, depending on what you buy, is Elevation. This is an Aldi private label. In other words, you won’t find a company called Elevation. Instead, this is the name Aldi puts on products that are knockoffs of name brands such as Clif Bars, LUNA Bars, Lärabars, and KIND bars. The Elevation brand also includes some protein powders and protein shake mixes that are designed to help you recover after athletic training or workouts. However, some Elevation products simply make good snacks to tuck into a lunch bag or take on a hike. My family is fond of the Elevation Kids Baked Oat Bars and Elevation Only Bars, which offer some fiber and, depending on the flavor, slightly less sugar than your average granola bar.

I recently discovered some Elevation bars that are imitations of name-brand Lärabar fruit and nut bars and contain only a few easily recognizable ingredients, including dates. While the name brand comes in a wide array of flavors, the Aldi Elevation Pure & Simple Fruit & Nut Bars come in just two flavors: Apple Pie and Peanut Butter Cookie.

Elevation Pure & Simple Fruit & Nut Bars are a Regular Buy, so you ought to be able to find them at Aldi all year.

These bars are a product of Germany. They’re advertised as dairy free, vegan, gluten free, and non GMO.

These cost $4.65 for an 8- to 8.5-ounce box at the time of publication. Each box contains five bars, which comes out to about 93 cents per bar. The Apple Pie Bars are each 1.6 ounces, while the Peanut Butter Cookie Bars are each 1.7 ounces. The Apple Pie bars come in an 8-ounce box, which comes out to about 58 cents per ounce. The Peanut Butter Cookies come in an 8.5-ounce box, which comes out to about 55 cents per ounce.

For comparison, I found name-brand Lärabar fruit and nut bars, which tend to be 1.6 or 1.7 ounces each, at Walmart starting at around $1 per bar if you buy a six-pack, or about $1.05 per bar for a 12-pack (on sale). The name brand is also around $1.05 per bar if you buy an 18-pack.

So the Aldi bars are marginally cheaper than the name brand. The price difference between name brand and the Elevation brand is not as big with these bars as it is with other Elevation bars and their name-brand counterparts.

Keep reading for more information about each Elevation Fruit & Nut Bar flavor.

Elevation Pure & Simple Apple Pie Fruit & Nut Bars:

Ingredients are dried apple, almonds, dates, walnuts, water, and 2% or less of raisins and cinnamon.

We liked this flavor, and these really do taste like apple pie, or at least it’s as close to apple pie as date bars can get. These have a dense texture and are moist, soft, chewy, and lightly sweet.

If you’re looking out for allergens, these contain tree nuts (almonds, walnuts). They may contain peanuts, other tree nuts, soy, and sesame. The box also warns they may contain pits and nut shell fragments.

One bar has 200 calories, 10 grams of total fat (12% DV), 1 gram of saturated fat (5% DV), 10 mg of sodium (0% DV), 24 grams of total carbohydrates (9% DV), 4 grams of dietary fiber (14% DV), 18 grams of total sugars, no added sugars, and 4 grams of protein.

When compared to name brand Apple Pie Lärabars, the ingredients are identical and the nutrition information is almost identical, with the same amount of calories, saturated fat, sodium, dietary fiber, natural sugars, and protein. The Aldi bars have one more gram of total fat and one fewer gram of total carbs compared to Apple Pie Lärabars.

Elevation Pure & Simple Peanut Butter Cookie Fruit & Nut Bars:

Ingredients are dates, peanuts, water, and sea salt.

These have an incredibly short ingredients list, and they’re pretty good. They do taste a bit like a peanut butter cookie. Similar to the Apple Pie bar, these are dense, moist, and have a hint of sweetness.

If you’re looking out for allergens, these contain peanuts. They may contain tree nuts, soy, and sesame. The box also warns these may contain pits and nut shell fragments.

One bar has 220 calories, 11 grams of total fat (15% DV), 1.5 grams of saturated fat (8% DV), 60 mg of sodium (3% DV), 23 grams of total carbohydrates (9% DV), 4 grams of dietary fiber (14% DV), 18 grams of total sugars, no added sugars, and 7 grams of protein.

When compared to name-brand Peanut Butter Cookie Lärabars, the ingredients are identical and the nutrition information is similar. Both brands have 220 calories per bar and the same amount of total carbs and dietary fiber. The Aldi bars have one less gram of total fat and half a gram less of saturated fat, and the Aldi bars have 60 mg of sodium per bar compared to 85 mg of sodium. The Aldi bars also have one more gram of natural sugars and one more gram of protein per bar.

The Verdict:

Elevation Pure & Simple Fruit & Nut Bars are dupes of name-brand Lärabars and come in two flavors: Apple Pie and Peanut Butter Cookie. These contain identical ingredients to the name brand and are very close in terms of nutrition facts compared to their name-brand counterparts. They contain simple ingredients such as dates, nuts, cinnamon, salt, and dried fruit. We love that these contain whole, easily recognizable ingredients, and they taste pretty good, too.