Our Ingredients & Sourcing

The main ingredients include nuts and seeds for healthy fats, dates and coconut nectar for natural sweetness, adaptogenic herbs to help manage stress, other functional herbs and spices for overall well-being, and plant proteins for sustained energy.

Whole food ingredients are used because they are recognizable and selected not just for their individual benefits, but also for their origin, processing, and how effectively your body can utilize them.

Nuts and seeds provide healthy fats that contribute to feelings of fullness and satisfaction.

The majority of ingredients in our ILA bars are organically sourced, but sometimes organic certification isn’t the gold standard in optimum ingredient quality these days. While we do value organic, we prefer to look deeper into our suppliers and ingredients. For example, dates rarely need to be sprayed with chemicals, so many are inherently organically grown, even without the certification. The same goes for many herbs. In an attempt to make our products cost accessible, we only source organic when absolutely necessary.

To us, “clean” has 2 meanings - clean taste & clean ingredients. We’ve had way too many energy bars that leave a weird or synthetic lingering aftertaste. That’s why we’ve formulated our bars to be flavorful and clean-tasting - so you aren’t tasting our energy bars hours later!

Clean ingredients means no artificial sweeteners, chemical preservatives, or low-quality rancid oils.  We only use whole food ingredients in our bar & plant-derived, botanical extracts when necessary for ensuring flavor, freshness, and shelf-life.

Yes! We are 100% plant-based.

You sure can! We aimed for the bars to have a sweet spot of our adaptogenic herbal formulas - we wanted there to be enough that you would be getting some benefit with each bar, but not so many that there would be any concern about having multiple in a day.

Like many other herbs, very little clinical testing has been done on the use of adaptogens while pregnant or breastfeeding. Traditionally, adaptogens such as Ashwagandha and Shatavari have been used tonically during pregnancy and breastfeeding, so if you’ve eaten one before knowing that you were pregnant, there shouldn’t be cause for concern. However, due to the lack of clinical data,  we would recommend you talk to your prescribing physician, holistic practitioner, or herbalist before eating or drinking adaptogens regularly.

ILA products are 100% plant-based and dairy-free!

We are big fans of meal times being a seated, sacred affair. But sometimes, life demands more from us and we have to eat something packaged on-the-go. While it’s not advised to use any energy bar as a meal replacement, ILA bars are balanced in protein, carbs, and fat and enough calories (220 cal) to hold you over for a while.

We’ve spent more than half a decade perfecting the base of our bars- finding that sweet spot of moisture and mouthfeel- so that we don’t have to rely on preservatives for freshness.

Adaptogenic herbs are included to help your body better manage stress and build resiliency, contributing to overall well-being.

Adaptogens are a unique class of herbs that help mitigate the effects of stress in our lives - everyone can use some help with that! When in a balanced formula, they are safe to consume everyday. You can read more about them here!

ILA uses herbs and functional ingredients in their most effective forms, including standardized extracts, to support optimal absorption and efficacy, ensuring that your body can actually use the ingredients provided.

An herbal extract is like a super-powered version of a plant. Scientists make it by soaking the herb in water, kind of like making tea, to pull out all the helpful parts. Then they remove the water, and what’s left is a strong powder called an extract.

The companies we work with follow very strict safety rules, and they can trace every herb back to the farm where it was grown.

Some plants, like mushrooms, really need to be made into extracts. If you just eat raw mushroom powder, your body can’t get much of the good stuff from it unless you boil it for a long time first. Extracting helps make those healthy parts easier for your body to use.

If you’re curious about any of our extracts, feel free to ask!

For each herb in our handcrafted blends, we use the form that offers the most bioavailability for each desired constituent, or active phytochemical. In layman’s terms, bioavailability just means your cells can actually access the beneficial bits of the herb you’re consuming. For example, raw, dried Reishi mushroom powder is less effective for delivering its desired constituents than an extract, while raw, dried Cinnamon bark powder is a good choice for accessing the tasty, carminative qualities that support digestion. You can learn more about why form matters in our blog Getting the Most from Your Herbs.

For this product, we chose to use the 100% fruiting body (the actual mushroom) option rather than the mycelium (root system). The fruiting body is what has been traditionally used & is easy to quantify the beneficial components such as terpenes and beta-glucans.  Although they definitely exist, it’s hard to find a mycelium-based company that creates a potent end product because of the medium (such as rice or cellulose) that the mycelium grows in. Luckily, we’ve found companies that can provide us with a sustainable supply of 100% fruiting body extracts.

Cannabis is definitely an herb, but we haven’t included it or any of its derivatives (CBD, THC, etc) in any of our energy bars. We focus on other herbs to nourish, strengthen, and calm.