REVIEW - Bounce Energy Balls

I love my degree. Not only because I get to learn about things that I genuinely find really interesting (food, nutrition and all that jazz) but also because we occasionally get gifted free food. The raw carrots we had in second year (as part of a sensory analysis lecture) were maybe not my favourite, but over the years I've also managed to obtain cheese, milk, biscuits, sweets and an entire cake. I'm not sure if the food has actually aided my learning, but I'm certainly not one to turn down free food!
More recently I was lucky enough to take home a whole box of Bounce energy balls. I've always wanted to give these a try but the price tag has been the main factor stopping me from doing so. I was pretty delighted when my lecturer showed up and started handing them out to us one Thursday afternoon!

I ended up with 3 different varieties: peanut, cacao orange and cacao mint. With no idea what to expect, I got stuck in first with the cacao orange.

Bouncing into today's review...

Cacao orange: "A chewy mix of cacao nibs, whey protein and sunflower seeds". Well, they certainly aren't exaggerating when they say 'chewy'! You definitely need some good jaw muscles (and no wobbly teeth) to get through this. Still, I actually really enjoyed it, once I got over the unusual texture - the cacao nibs were really nice and there was definitely a hint of orange coming through. It does actually taste weirdly chocolatey, which I think is due to the cocoa powder that's listed in the ingredients. 
It's basically a really healthy Terry's chocolate orange.

Cacao mint: This is a twin of the cacao orange ball, except it tastes of mint (obviously) rather than orange. A healthy After 8 Mint, if you will. It certainly did taste nice and minty - the recipe uses 0.2% mint oil to get the flavour in. It's not overpowering though, and you still get a nice chocolate hit from the nibs and cocoa powder.

Peanut: Despite being a big peanut fan, I think this was probably my least favourite. It tasted perfectly fine, but I think I missed the cacao nibs and the flavour punch that came in the other two. Despite a peanut percentage of 34%, I didn't think this tasted that nutty (either a good or bad thing, depending on your personal preference!) - the taste was definitely there, but not as strong as I was expecting. I also just found it a little bit bland (boring?). Still, it was very edible and not horrible in any way - I'm just being picky!

Overall I really enjoyed my first experience of Bounce balls (although I was mildly disappointed that they're not actually ball-shaped, but instead appear rather squashed) and will definitely be giving some other flavours a try in the future. They take a bit of getting used to - they are *very* chewy and have a unique texture - but I personally really liked them. I think it's an 8 out of 10 from me! (I just wish they were cheaper)