Tidbits: Clif bar options keep multiplying

Fans of the many, many kinds of Clif bars might be pleased to know that there are now organic Clif bars. Well, there already were organic

Clif bars — specifically the nine kinds of KIT's Organic Clif bars (six Fruit & Nut bars and three Fruit & Seed bars) — and all of those are gluten-free, soy-free and dairy-free. The seven new Clif Organic Trail Mix bars (four featuring dark chocolate, three fruit and nut) are gluten-free but all contain soybeans.

Mr. Tidbit wouldn't have thought soybeans were worth a whole separate line of Clif bars, but Mr. Tidbit is pretty far out of his depth here anyway. He wouldn't have guessed there were 17 kinds of regular Clif bars (plus three seasonal flavors), four kinds of mini Clif bars, nine Clif Builder's (protein) bars and three Clif Mojo Sweet & Salty Trail Mix bars. Oh, and six Clif Kid organic Zbars and three Clif Kid Zbar Protein bars.

Mr. Tidbit learned most of that from the Clif bars website. The store where he found the new organic Clif bars had only those and the plain old regular Clif bars. At that store, the box of regular Clif bars (six 2.4-ounce bars) was $5.99 — 42 cents an ounce. The organic Clif bars were $5.99, too. But it's a box of only four much smaller 1.41-ounce bars, so an ounce of the organic bars is $1.06 — 152 percent more.

While Mr. Tidbit is being uncharacteristically organic, he might as well call to your attention another brand of those things that let you squeeze fruit into your face — this one said to be available only at Target and Safeway. It's Organic Slammers Superfood Snacks, in four flavors: Epic, Awesome, Chill'n and Pumped. If that isn't enough information, here are the first eight ingredients (all organic) of each.

Epic: apples, mangoes, bananas, carrots, orange juice, Greek yogurt, water, skim milk powder.

Awesome: bananas, apples, water, blueberries, strawberries, beets, açai, amaranth.

Chill'n: apples, bananas, blueberries, water, butternut squash, Greek yogurt, yumberries, lemon juice.

Pumped: bananas, water, mangoes, butternut squash, apples, modcarb (oat bran, amaranth, quinoa, buckwheat, millet, chia), pineapple juice, lemon juice.

Apparently, there are also two flavors of Slammers Protein + Organics, but they weren't at the store I visited.

Al Sicherman