You ever have one of those nights where you tell yourself
“I’m just gonna check one thing real quick”

…and three hours later you’re deep in a PDF about non-absorbable triglyceride analogs wondering if vitamin K depletion is the hill you die on?

That was me last night and previous days too.

..Because David Bars got sued.

And once a protein bar lawsuit hits federal court, my brain does not let that go.
Not because I care about internet drama....
​
...but because I care about dose-response curves, fat-soluble vitamin transport, and whether the thing in your snack bar behaves like food or behaves like a chemistry experiment that escaped the lab and learned how to deadlift.

So I pulled the complaint.
Then I pulled David’s March 12 statement.
Then I pulled the EPG papers.

And somewhere around page 37 of a Regulatory Toxicology journal article, I realized:

This is one of those situations where both sides are kind of right,
and both sides are also missing the part that actually matters to you.

Strap your propeller hat on tight as here we go down the nerd chute full speed.

First — what the lawsuit actually says

The class action filed in the Southern District of New York claims David Bars contain way more calories and fat than the label says.

Like…

Label: ~150 calories
Plaintiff testing: ~268–275 calories

Label: ~2 g fat
Plaintiff testing: ~11–13.5 g fat

That's not a rounding error Brosefus, that's a holy-hell-what-did-you-put-in-this-thing error.

The complaint says they used standard nutrient calculations (Atwater factors) and lab testing methods normally used for food labeling, and based on those methods the bars are off by 70–80% in calories and several hundred percent in fat (Lopez v. Linus Technologies, Inc., 2026).

If that were the whole story, this would be over already.

But it isn’t.

Because David Bars contain EPG.

And EPG is where this thing goes sideways.

EPG is not normal fat, and that’s the whole point

EPG — esterified propoxylated glycerol — is basically a Frankenstein version of fat.

It looks like fat.
Acts like fat in food.
Feels like fat in your mouth.

...But your body doesn’t digest it well.

That’s not a bug.

That’s the feature.

EPG was literally designed to resemble triglycerides (fat) but resist digestion, so it delivers far less metabolizable energy than normal fat (Bechtel, 2014).

Which means if you burn it in a lab, it looks like fat.
If you eat it, it doesn’t behave like fat.

That distinction matters.

A lot.

Because standard calorie math assumes nutrients are absorbed.

EPG laughs at that assumption.

David’s March 12 statement basically says the lawsuit is using the wrong logic — treating EPG like regular fat — and points out that FDA-reviewed GRAS notices recognize EPG at about 0.7 kcal per gram, not 9 kcal per gram like normal fat (David Protein, 2026).

On that narrow point?

They have a real argument.

This is not conspiracy talk.

This is literally how the ingredient was engineered.

But this is where my brain started itching

Because once I saw the 0.7 kcal/g number, I did what every sleep-deprived physiology nerd does.

I started back-calculating.

If the label says 2 g fat and EPG only counts as ~0.08 g fat per gram, then there has to be a lot more EPG in the bar than most people realize.

And once you start thinking about total EPG intake per day…

…you end up in the human trials.

Which is where things get interesting that makes companies use the phrase “fully compliant with FDA regulations” instead of answering the actual question.

The vitamin K paper that nobody wants to talk about

During my full-Nelson treatment I found a randomized controlled trial where subjects consumed EPG for 8 weeks at different doses.

10 g/day
25 g/day
40 g/day

At the higher doses, researchers saw lower circulating beta-carotene and phylloquinone (vitamin K1), and increases in PIVKA-II, which is a marker consistent with reduced vitamin K status (Davidson & Bechtel, 2014).

Not speculation.

Not internet rumor.

Human RCT.

Same study also reported more GI issues at very high doses:

Oily stool
Oily spotting
Loose stool
Diarrhea

Yes, really. The kind where you are doing the Wilfred Brimye two-step for some time.

And before the internet screams, no — that does not mean EPG is poison.

It means dose matters, which is the least exciting and most important sentence in all of physiology.

At ~10 g/day, effects were minimal.

At ~25–40 g/day, changes started showing up (Davidson & Bechtel, 2014).

Now here’s the part where I started laughing in a slightly unhinged way.

Because if a bar contains roughly 8–10 g of EPG…

One bar = fine
Two bars = getting up there
Three bars = now we’re in the neighborhood where the human data lives

And this is exactly the part David’s statement does not talk about.

Not once.

Instead the statement says the labels are compliant.

Which might be legally true, however this was not mentioned.

To be fair, if you are slamming 3 protein bars into your cake-hole daily for weeks on end without any ofter sources of Vitamin K, your entire nutrition plan needs a massive rework; hence this is probably not anything to worry about in lower amounts combined with even halfway decent nutrition .

The real question is not “is the label legal”

The real question is:

How much EPG is in one bar?
How much per day starts to matter?
What intake level did the human studies use?
Where does normal use sit relative to that?

Those are physiology questions.

Not legal questions.

And when companies answer physiology questions with legal language, my internal alarm goes off like a smoke detector in a sauna.

Not because I think they’re evil.

Because I think lawyers got there first.

Here’s my actual take, after way too much reading

On calories?

David probably has the stronger argument.

EPG does not behave like normal fat.
Standard calorie math can overestimate usable energy.
That part lines up with the literature (Bechtel, 2014; David Protein, 2026).

On transparency?

They could have done better.

Because the human data on vitamin K markers and GI effects exists (Davidson & Bechtel, 2014).

And when an ingredient has human dose-response data…

…pretending the only issue is label compliance feels like answering the wrong exam.

If they had said:

Each bar contains about X g EPG.
Human studies show changes at ~25 g/day.
Typical intake of one bar stays below that range.

I would have nodded, closed the PDF, and gone to bed.

Instead I ended up reading toxicology journals at 3 AM like a raccoon with Wi-Fi.

What this means for you

One bar occasionally?

Probably fine.

One bar daily?

Still likely fine.

Multiple bars per day for weeks because the macros look like they were designed by a Swiss engineer on Adderall?

Now dose matters.

Not because the bar is evil.

Because physiology does not care about marketing.

And fat-substitute molecules do not care about vibes.

Bottom line

The lawsuit might be weak on calories.

David might be right on labeling.

...But the human data on EPG dose still exists.

And when weird engineered ingredients are involved, the smartest move is not panic…

…it’s knowing how much you’re actually eating.

That’s the difference between nutrition and internet theater.

In this case if I was an attorney (which I am not), I would feel quite confident that David Bars are inline with what they claim as calories and fat.

The one final line - if you are worried about David bars sneaking more calories in, you can relax as the label with modern technology is correct.

Much love and protein for the win!

Dr Mike

PS - I am an affiliate for David Bars so I do make a few clams, but I would never sell my soul to make a bit more coin. They did not pay me to write this and I wanted to know for myself and then decided to share this as I got several questions on it.

>> David Bars << check them out here

References

Bechtel, D. H. (2014). Article series: Safety of esterified propoxylated glycerol (EPG), a nonabsorbable fat replacer. Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, 70(Suppl 2), S91–S94.

David Protein. (2026). Class action lawsuit response. https://davidprotein.com/pages/class-action-lawsuit-response​

Davidson, M. H., & Bechtel, D. H. (2014). Assessment of the effect of esterified propoxylated glycerol (EPG) on fat-soluble vitamin status in humans. Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, 70(Suppl 2), S143–S157.

Lopez v. Linus Technologies, Inc. (2026). U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.

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Mike T Nelson CISSN, CSCS, MSME, PhD
Associate Professor, Carrick Institute
Owner, Extreme Human Performance, LLC
Editorial Board Member, STRONG Fitness Mag

Mike T Nelson is a PhD and not a physician or registered dietitian. The contents of this email should not be taken as medical advice. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any health problem - nor is it intended to replace the advice of a physician. Always consult your physician or qualified health professional on any matters regarding your health.

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