A math lesson, by Junk Banter:

Zebra Plus Nutty Bars = One Fat Food-Blogging Idiot Ready To Eat More Garbage.

Little Debbie Zebra Plus Nutty Bars

I ate a lot of Nutty Bars in elementary school. They were like, a quarter, and they weren’t fruit. They were dependable; chocolate and peanut butter always are. But a fat boy cannot pursue his dream of eating everything on the planet if he sticks to the same old Nutty Bars. Over time, I simply forgot about Little Debbie Nutty Bars as I moved towards bigger things, such as bigger t-shirts and bigger pants. What better way to recapture my attention than to combine Nutty Bars with another fat-bomb I consumed many of growing up: Little Debbie Zebra Cakes.

Now, let’s be real: Little Debbie Zebra Plus Nutty Bars are almost definitely the regular Nutty Bars with a sexy paint job and nothing more. It’s possible that the white confection is slightly different than the brown confection, but I’m not banking on it. Even if that were true, we’ve seen a similar product with Little Debbie North Pole Nutty Bars around the holidays. But that’s ok! The Little Debbie Zebra Brownies reminded me that Little Debbie is the OG Brownie Boss, and I thoroughly enjoyed reacquainting with an old friend when I reviewed those. Let’s see if Little Debbie Zebra Plus Nutty Bars will yield a similar experience.

After one bite of Little Debbie Zebra Plus Nutty Bars, I didn’t receive the same combo of nostalgia and euphoria that I did with the brownies. They taste about 90% the same as I remember Nutty Bars, but I just don’t know if they’ve withstood the test of time as much. The lead flavor is without-a-doubt peanut butter over the candy confection. The wafer is light and flaky, but it feels a bit stale or cheap. It just wasn’t the most satisfying chew. I don’t have the original Nutty Bar on hand to compare to, but these seem thinner than I remember them. The calories-per-bar is lighter than the original, so they may indeed be thinner and it could be contributing to my less-than-enthusiastic response.

The creamy peanut butter between the wafer layers keeps the bars from feeling dry as you eat them. The peanut butter, again, isn’t of superior quality but this is to be expected. The taste of peanut butter gives way to a milky, richly sweet flavor on the back end. In a blind taste test without scrutinizing, I would identify this as just a Nutty Bar. But based on memory alone, I think Little Debbie Zebra Plus Nutty Bars are the tiniest bit sweeter than the original, and might have the tiniest vanilla flavor to the confection. They’re not as chocolatey as I remember, though cocoa is still an ingredient here. Cocoa occupies a slightly different landing spot on the ingredient list against the original, so the flavors could very well have variance.

In summary, I just don’t think I love Nutty Bars as much as I used to. Little Debbie Zebra Plus Nutty Bars are mostly the same thing, and I walked/rolled away disappointed.

Original Nutty Bars Rating: 7 out of 10
North Pole Nutty Bars Rating: Santa! out of 10
Overall Rating: 6.5 out of 10

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