Agreed. Anything processed is indeed bad, but you cannot completely avoid refined foods, sugar, and carbs. Keep it to a bare minimum, the more clean you eat the better and faster your results will come, for sure.
I stay away from the protein bars, I treat them like I would a candy bar more as a once in a while treat. I know some of the atkins bars have very low sugar content, like 2 g of natural occuring sugar and as much as 25 g of protein. To put it into perspective, a tomato has 1g of naturally occuring sugar and this is one food that is allowed on ketogenic-friendly dieting. Not bad for a bit of protein if nothing else is available. Certainly a far better choice than almost any other unhealthy food, and with much more protein.
But for protein powder, I think this is absolutely indespensible especially if you're a serious lifter as eating 180 grams worth of fish and chicken every day gets kinda boring.
Nothing beats a high protein shake mixed with whole milk and some creatine and hmb with no fillers, additives, or refined sugars right after a hard workout. One study stated a protein shake was more effective for post-workout natural anabolic muscle growth than whole food proteins because as a liquid it's digested faster.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3577439/
Also stated in the study:
"These results support the presence of a post-exercise window and suggest that delaying post-workout nutrient intake may impede muscular gains."
Not to mention:
"In an elegant single-blinded design, Cribb and Hayes [
70] found a significant benefit to post-exercise protein consumption in 23 recreational male bodybuilders. Subjects were randomly divided into either a PRE-POST group that consumed a supplement containing protein, carbohydrate and creatine immediately before and after training or a MOR-EVE group that consumed the same supplement in the morning and evening at least 5 hours outside the workout. Both groups performed regimented resistance training that progressively increased intensity from 70% 1RM to 95% 1RM over the course of 10 weeks. Results showed that the PRE-POST group achieved a significantly greater increase in lean body mass and increased type II fiber area compared to MOR-EVE. Findings support the benefits of nutrient timing on training-induced muscular adaptations. The study was limited by the addition of creatine monohydrate to the supplement, which may have facilitated increased uptake following training."