What part do protein bars have in your plan?

I too like them for an easy meal. There's pros and cons to them--they can be trigger foods and it can be easy to rely on them rather than to pick fresh food, but they are wonderful when you can't have fresh food around or when you want a healthy-ish "treat". Quest bars as good as as are Power Crunch bars.  The Power Crunch bars are super easy to eat so it takes longer if those are frozen. Freeze a chocolate mint and it tastes like a girl Scout thin mint. 

I have had maybe half a dozen Quest bars since my surgery almost a year ago, so obviously I am not a frequent buyer. I considered one a meal when I ate it, or broke it in half and ate it over two days as a 'side' for a hardboiled egg or bit of jerky. Honestly, if I'm planning on carrying an easy meal it's usually a snack sized package of jerky or a tuna packet, and I do keep an 'emergency meal' sample serving packet of syntrax protein powder in my car just in case. 

I eat one every day - LOVE my SimplyProtein bars! I count them as one of my 6 small meals a day. I wouldn't be able to get my protien in without them. It's my driving home from work meal. Losing nicely and they are not a trigger food for me at all. 

If I was on the run and missed a meal I might of (in the past) purchased a small protein bar or eat 1/2 of a regular sized bar.  I cannot purchase a box and have them  in my home however. I binge on them especially if they have chocolate and nuts - two of my trigger foods.  I now abstain from trigger foods and am finding peace of mind.

I never did protein bars during my first year - only when I got to maintenance. Most have a whey blend instead of pure isolate whey and very many have a lot of sugar and carbs.  I was diabetic pre-surgery so they were never a part of my diet until my diabetes was gone and I had lost a lot of weight.  I didn't like Quest bars but loved Oh Yeah which had a chocolate bar consistency.

Don't touch them if you ever overate or binged on chocolate or candy, or had a high sugar diet etc. etc. If you aren't triggered at all I would still have no more than once a week as a treat.  They really are just processed food and not real food.