Mr. CLIFstone

Admin note: If you haven't done so already, there's still time to get in on my ZYM electrolyte tablet giveaway; leave a comment on that post to enter, and I'll announce three winners this weekend.
And now on to today's post ...

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"I used to do a little but a little wouldn't do it –
So the little got more and more and more –
I just keep trying to get a little better –
Said a little better than before."
- Guns 'N' Roses, "Mr Brownstone" (video after post)

A couple of weeks ago we were pleasantly surprised to find the following gift from our local Safeway store in our mailbox:

Inside were two samples of CLIF Builder's Bars, which I've reviewed here and have a great fondness for. The gesture would have been even nicer, if it weren't for another box that arrived at our house that same week:


A massive supply of Builder's Bars – as in 12 cases worth - purchased from the company in an attempt to keep pace with our rapid consumption. To say that my family is a fan of CLIF products is a tremendous understatement; more accurately, you could say our interest is bordering on obsessive.

Our predicament might fairly be considered the dark side of doing product reviews, because our fixation with nearly every one of the items we're now collectively hooked on started with reviews and giveaways on this website. Remember the ROKS review? They go in our kids lunches as a healthy protein snack. How about the BLOKS? They're a staple of our family hikes. The CRUNCH bars are also great lunchbox material, and CLIF C makes a healthy midday or post-dinner snack. And of course, there's the Builder's Bars, which are my wife's favorite portable breakfast when she's rushing out the door to drop off the kids before jumping into her own work day, and my preferred way of getting a midday protein boost without having to hunt down a deli sandwich.

As to why we buy these particular bars (Builder's) directly from the company – that's because our two favorite flavors are lemon and vanilla almond, neither of which are carried by our local stores (but trust me, I'm working on it). And in case you weren't yet convinced of our devotion to this company: what do you suppose we use to open all these CLIF boxes that come to our house?


Have I mentioned that we have a lot of CLIF items around our house? Or that my 9-year-old daughter wants to have her next birthday party at CLIF headquarters? Sometimes I wish I were making this stuff up.

Not to be overlooked in all of this, of course, is the product that started it all: original CLIF Bars, which continue to be my favorite items from the whole product line. I use them for post-workout nutrition if I'm away from home, and they're a favorite lunch item for my kids if we're traveling or spending all day outside the house on a hike or bike ride. They're also the products I use to share the CLIF love with lots of people around my community.


The storage compartment of my driver-side car door

Since the CLIF company makes so many charitable contributions, it seemed fitting for me to carry a stash of bars in my car and give them away to homeless people I encounter on street corners or in front of stores. This practice started as a whim, but has grown into a somewhat sizeable expense from month to month. We've even had the kids participate in making CLIF Bar distribution runs to our local homeless population. It's one of those situations where everybody wins.

Handing out CLIF bars makes sense on a lot of levels: I feel much better about giving healthy food away than I do giving money to people, and there's something rewarding about being used in the greater scheme of things to help provide daily bread for someone who needs it. From a practical standpoint, the bars are convenient enough to stuff in your pocket for later, have a weather-proof wrapper to keep them safe from the elements, and provide reasonable sustenance if you're not sure when your next meal will be. The fact that they taste pretty good is a nice bonus as well.

So yeah … it's no secret that we've gotten somewhat carried away with our CLIF infatuation, and that a little just doesn't do it for us anymore. But I'm also quite certain that our lives, and perhaps to some small extent the lives of those around us, are a little better than before we completely went off the deep end. (At least that's what I tell myself to justify all this.) And as I have further opportunities to review their products throughout the year, I'll be sure to share the love with my readers as well.

Finally, if my daughter somehow fulfills her dream and ends up working for CLIF one day, I'm pretty sure we can look back and say we know how it all started.

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At first, the thought of a song that is mainly a tribute by a strung-out group of addicts to their favorite substance of choice seemed a little excessive here … but re-reading what I just wrote, maybe not so much.

Guns 'N' Roses, "Mr Brownstone", live at the Ritz (click to play):

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