ABOUT
01 · FROM THE FOUNDER
Hey, I’m Tim. I made Ration because I have a daily protein and calorie target, and the protein aisle wasn’t cutting it for me.
I prefer to get my protein from real food, like chicken, egg whites, and Greek yogurt. But on busy days (early flights, meetings that run through lunch) the plan falls apart, and I reach for a bar. And the options there were basically the dessert aisle, or jerky and sadness.
One long travel day, I had a “meal” of two Quest protein bars and a Core Power vanilla protein shake. The bars were chocolate-ish and the shake was vanilla. And this is considered… good? Yes, the macros are strong, but this is not how I want to experience food.
Then there’s the example it sets for my sons. Try explaining it to them: yes, boys, this stack of candy-flavored protein stuff is a better call than fried chicken tenders with ranch and fries. Macro for macro, it’s even true. But come on.
I love the David bars, and their macros are excellent, but they are too damn delicious. They’re tempting to have around the house, which makes it harder to keep calories in check, because I’ll have them as a treat instead of a supplement.
And don’t get me started on the products that print a big protein number over a candy bar’s worth of calories. Those aren’t supplements. They’re candy bars in disguise.
So my sons and I built Ration. A straightforward protein bar: 25g protein, 170 to 200 calories, 0g added sugar. Protein crisps and puffed rice, so there’s actually something to chew. No candy engineering, which is exactly what lets the flavors taste like food. Real food stays the main plan. The bar covers the gaps.
Because candy bars are for children. Ration is for you.
Hit your targets. Reach your goals.
All the love,
Tim, Jack, and Will
MY CURRENT TARGETS · JULY 2026 · CUT PHASE
- PROTEIN A DAY
- 170G
- KCAL A DAY
- 1700
02 · WHY IT’S BUILT THIS WAY
REASON NO. 1BUILT FOR CONSISTENCY.
Targets only count if you hit them on the ordinary days, and sometimes life makes that hard. What gets you through those weeks is a plan you can repeat, and food you can repeat is a big part of that. Ration is built to be repeatable. A little boring, in a good way. You don’t need it every day. It’s there on the day you need it.
Repeatable is exactly where candy-flavored bars fail. A few days into the same frosted flavor, you’re done with it, and if you can’t face the bar, you miss the target. Even the people who taste these bars for a living describe the same wall: around day four, that much sweetness is just too much, and you stop reaching for it. We’re not the only ones tired of the frosting.
“…for a break from the endless onslaught of sweetness.”
The most disciplined people in fitness already eat this way. Dr. Mike Israetel splits meals into business meals and fun meals, and most of them are business:
“You just have to consider yourself with a ratio and have mostly business meals and a few fun meals. Then it’s kind of like a big hack.”
The experts already eat bars as fuel, on purpose. They just put up with the frosting. A bar built for the business-meal job should still taste like food on day four, so that’s the bar we built.
REASON NO. 2THE RATIO IS THE POINT.
Hitting a protein target inside a calorie budget is a ratio problem: how many grams of protein you get for the calories you spend. A big protein number on the front of the wrapper only tells you half of that, and plenty of bars hide a candy bar’s worth of calories and sugar behind it. Dietitians have said it plainly:
“It’s essentially dessert with a sprinkle of protein and fiber to dress it up.”
“Are protein bars really just candy bars in disguise?”
A few products do get the ratio right, and we use some of them ourselves. They are still dessert.
Ration gives you 25g protein for 170 to 200 calories, with 0g added sugar and total sugars of <1g to 4g per bar.
REASON NO. 3EASIER TO STOP AT ONE.
You eat a “protein” bar to stay on target, and the hyper-sweet ones leave you hungrier and reaching for a second. That’s not an accident. Maxed-out sweetness is engineered to keep you eating.
“Tasty foods are much easier to eat in excess and much harder to eat in small quantities…”
A decade later, he was still saying it:
“You want to choose food when you’re dieting… that’s not so damn delicious that you just want to eat more and more of it.”
The NIH actually tested this: same people, with sugar, fat, fiber, and carbs matched, eating an ultra-processed diet and then a minimally processed one. The finding, in their words:
“…that ultra-processed foods cause people to eat too many calories and gain weight.”
On the ultra-processed diet, participants ate about 500 more calories a day. And zero-sugar doesn’t fix this, because zero-sugar usually means the sweetness is turned all the way up. In a 75-person randomized trial at USC’s Keck School of Medicine (2025, published in Nature Metabolism), a calorie-free sweetener increased hunger and the brain’s hunger signaling compared with sugar, and didn’t trigger the fullness hormones sugar does. Maxed-out sweetness does that whether the calories are there or not.
There’s even a name for why there’s always room for dessert: sensory-specific satiety. One clear flavor satisfies, and you stop. A stack of engineered sweet notes never quite satisfies, so you keep going back for the next bite.
The problem isn’t which sweetener. It’s how loud. Ration uses a small dose of allulose, enough to take the edge off the tart cherry and round out the toasted oat, never to simulate frosting. In the two cheddar bars it does no flavor work at all; it’s there to bind. The sweetness sits at toast, not birthday cake. And yes, Ration is processed food too. The difference is we skip the parts engineered to keep you eating.
REASON NO. 4SEASONED LIKE FOOD.
Sometimes you just need 25 grams, and a chocolate-frosted anything is the wrong tool for the job. Ration’s flavors are seasoned like food: Toasted Oat · Sea Salt and Tart Cherry · Almond are gently sweet, and Sharp Cheddar and Jalapeno Cheddar are fully savory.
Fair question: does a bar that isn’t trying to be candy taste like cardboard? No. The savory bars eat like a cheese cracker, the sweet ones like good toast and real tart cherry, and inside it’s puffed rice and protein crisps, light and crisp. We never wanted to strip the flavor out, just the candy engineering. A food writer put it well:
“I’ve long wanted a protein bar that isn’t trying to be candy… and a savory flavor profile would be nice, too.”
And to be clear: dessert is fine. Have dessert, on purpose, and enjoy it. Just don’t call it a supplement.
03 · THE SPEC
25g protein. 170 to 200 calories. Sweetness dialed down, not dessert. Puffed rice and protein crisps for volume.
04 · THE NAME
A ration is food you plan around: a known quantity, issued in boxes, eaten on schedule. For people who track, that’s what a protein bar already is. We named the product after the job.
