By Alice Benedetto, RN | Founder, Raw Rev | March 2026

EPG. Sucralose. Acesulfame potassium. Maltitol. Collagen protein. 

These are ingredients showing up in protein bars being sold as healthy, clean, and high-performance right now — and most people have no idea what they're actually consuming.

If you've been reading about protein bar ingredients lately and found yourself down a rabbit hole — wondering what EPG actually is, whether artificial sweeteners are really safe, or why a bar's calorie count might not add up — you're not alone. And you're asking exactly the right questions.

The short answers: EPG is a synthetic fat replacer engineered to pass through your body undigested, which lets brands post impressively low calorie counts while raising real questions about digestive side effects. Sucralose and acesulfame potassium are artificial sweeteners with a growing body of research showing negative effects on insulin response and gut health. And collagen — despite being everywhere right now — is not a complete protein, no matter what the label implies.

I'm Alice Benedetto. I'm a registered nurse, a raw food trained chef, and the founder of Raw Rev. I've been reading protein bar labels — and rejecting most of them — for over two decades. Here's everything you need to know.

Why I Started Reading Labels Before It Was Cool

In 2004, I was pushing a cart through a grocery store with my two-year-old son, watching him reach for snack after snack loaded with sugar, fillers, and ingredients I wouldn't let near a patient in my care. I was furious. I was also a nurse, a chef, and a mom — so instead of just being angry, I went home and started making something better in my own kitchen.

Nuts. Seeds. Dates. Fruit. Real food that tasted incredible and didn't require a chemistry degree to understand. Kids in my neighborhood started choosing my bars over candy. Parents started asking what I was making. That kitchen experiment became Raw Rev.

Twenty-two years later, what I see in the protein bar aisle genuinely shocks me — and that's saying something for a nurse. So let's go ingredient by ingredient.

What Is EPG — And Why Is It in Your "Healthy" Bar?

Esterified propoxylated glycerol — EPG — is a synthetic fat substitute engineered to mimic the texture of real fat without contributing the same calories to the nutrition label. Because it moves through the digestive system largely unabsorbed, manufacturers can dramatically reduce the stated calorie count on a bar while still achieving that rich, creamy texture consumers expect.

Sounds clever. Here's my concern as a nurse: ingredients your body can't absorb aren't neutral. EPG has been compared to Olestra — the 1990s fat substitute infamous for causing unpleasant digestive side effects. EPG appears to be better tolerated, but it has been linked to GI discomfort, gas, and bloating at higher doses. And because there's no requirement to disclose how much EPG is in a product, consumers have no way to know how much they're getting.

There's also a deeper issue. When a nutrition label stops reflecting what's actually going into your body — because certain ingredients are engineered to technically not count — label transparency breaks down. As someone who has counseled patients on nutrition for years, I find that deeply problematic.

What to look for: Scan for "esterified propoxylated glycerol," "EPG," "modified plant oil," or "fat replacer" in the ingredient list. If you see them, know the calorie count may not work the way you think.

"Zero Sugar" Doesn't Mean What You Think — And Artificial Sweeteners Are Not the Answer

I'll be direct: don't eat sucralose or acesulfame potassium if you can avoid it. That's my recommendation as a registered nurse and mom — not as a food blogger.

Studies have linked sucralose to negative impacts on insulin response. Acesulfame potassium has shown concerning effects on the gut microbiome. Maltitol — a sugar alcohol leaned on heavily by the bars with the boldest labels and the biggest marketing budgets right now — has a glycemic index higher than most people realize, and is well known for causing serious GI distress at higher amounts.

"Zero sugar" on a label simply means no added sucrose. It says nothing about what's creating the sweetness instead. Many bars that proudly advertise zero sugar contain three, four, or five different sweetening agents — a cocktail your body has to process whether the label acknowledges it or not. Those bars were made in a lab, not in a kitchen.

I made Raw Rev with no sucralose, no acesulfame potassium, and no maltitol because that's what made sense to me as both a nurse and a chef. Your body knows exactly what to do with a date. The same cannot be said for acesulfame potassium or maltitol.

Is the Protein in Your Bar Actually Complete? (About That Collagen Hype...)

Not all protein grams are equal — and the industry has gotten very good at obscuring this.

Collagen has been one of the most effective marketing campaigns aimed at women in recent memory. It has been dropped into protein bars as a way to boost the gram count on the label and associate the product with benefits like improved skin, joints, and hair. Here's what I'll tell you as both a nurse and someone who has read the actual research:

Collagen is not a complete protein. It is missing tryptophan — an essential amino acid your body cannot produce on its own. And when you consume collagen, your digestive acids break it down before it can deliver the benefits being marketed to you. The idea that eating collagen directly translates to better skin or joint health is, to be blunt, far more marketing than science.

Plant-based complete proteins — Pea protein, brown rice protein, flax protein, and chia seeds — deliver everything your body needs without the cholesterol, without the digestive burden of dairy-based whey, and without the misleading gram counts that come from incomplete protein sources.

What to look for: Check the first few ingredients.Complete protein sources include pea protein, brown rice protein, flax protein, and chia seeds. If collagen or collagen peptides appear as the primary protein source, that 28g on the label is not doing what you think it's doing.

I've Seen This Movie Before

As a mom, this pattern is painfully familiar. Lunchables. Nature Valley bars. Met-RX bars loaded with corn syrup and sugar. Products that wore a healthy costume while quietly being anything but — and parents buying them in good faith because the packaging said all the right things.

The protein bar aisle is doing the same thing at a more sophisticated level. Synthetic fat replacers. Artificial sweetener cocktails. Incomplete protein sources dressed up in impressive gram counts. Calorie math that works differently than consumers expect.

My mom instinct is the same as my nurse instinct: if you can't read it, don't eat it. And definitely don't feed it to your kids.

The Protein Bar Ingredient Checklist (From Someone Who's Read Thousands of Labels)

Before you buy, run your bar through this:

GREEN FLAGS — Put it in the cart:

• ✓ Whole food ingredients in the first 1–3 spots (nuts, dates, seeds, oats, fruit)

• ✓ Short ingredient list you can read in under 30 seconds

• ✓ Natural sweetness from real sources — dates, honey, fruit

• ✓ Complete protein: pea, brown rice, flax, chia

• ✓ Low sugar from whole food sources — not hidden behind "zero sugar" claims

RED FLAGS — Put it back:

• ✗  EPG, esterified propoxylated glycerol, or "fat replacer" anywhere in the list

• ✗  Sucralose or acesulfame potassium (Ace-K) as sweeteners

• ✗  Maltitol or multiple sugar alcohols high on the ingredient list

• ✗  Collagen as the primary or only protein source

• ✗  20+ ingredients, many unrecognizable

• ✗  "Zero sugar" with no explanation of what creates the sweetness

The Bar I Couldn't Find, So I Made It

I started Raw Rev because I couldn't find a single bar that met my standards as a nurse, a mom, and a chef — all three, at the same time. Clean ingredients. Real sweetness. Complete protein. A label so honest you don't need to Google a single thing on it.

That bar exists now. It started in my kitchen in 2004 and it's still made the same way: real food, nothing engineered, nothing hidden.

Read the label on whatever bar you're holding right now. You deserve to know exactly what's in it.