More sex. More sleep.

Surprisingly, they take a backseat. If given a choice, what most people want more of is not one or the other.

In a national survey of 1,500 men and women between the ages of 18 and 54 conducted by InnovateMP and released earlier in January, 56 percent of women and 46 percent of men - 51 percent of all respondents - preferred more of something else. A something many “Fitness Master” articles provide.

More energy.

Now I cite this survey not so you see “More sex” at the start and keep reading, but because it’s more evidence of what I’ve written repeatedly: that food needs to do more than just taste good. It needs to serve a second function.

It needs to fuel the machine we call you.

When food producers concoct a snack specifically with that goal in mind, they’ll often market it as an energy bar. But more often than not, they’re guilty of false advertising - even though they can technically claim innocence in the short term.

Like candy bars, many energy bars contain a surfeit of simple carbohydrates often in the form of added sugars, which does indeed provide an immediate, albeit abbreviated, oomph. So often after consuming one, you can feel the need to refuel about 90 minutes later.

Meanwhile, the “emissions” produced by digesting such an energy bar - the overload of simple carbs that your muscle cells can’t accept and the fat used to solidify, preserve, and make the bar taste good - do not dissipate into the air like automobile emissions. They find refuge in your fat stores.

In short, you need relief from such unproductive and potentially weight-gaining snacking. And fortuitously for you, the Hall of Fame baseball relief pitcher Mariano Rivera has once again emerged from the bullpen to help create MO Energy Bars.

While I’m not sure whether the MO is a derivation of “more,” Mariano, or maybe even “motivation,” I do know the results from the five taste testers who tried the samples of the bars that Debbie Koke, Publicist at Orca Communications Unlimited, LLC, sent me.

One experienced what he called “a definite lift in energy.” Another said essentially the same: “the boost was noticeable and sustained.”

After skipping the energy drink he normally sips before that week’s toughest workout and eating a bar instead, the true muscle head in the group concurred with the others.

A fourth ate the bar not before a long workout but after “a long night out.” Though she “didn’t feel like running a marathon” afterwards, she did find her typical midday hunger so controlled that she “pushed lunch back about two hours.”

If you check out the MO Bars at https://ineedmo.com/, you’ll find all the reasons why she was able to do that. One being MO Bars do not contain any added sugars.

Something else you’ll find out: The bars are vegan, kosher, and gluten free.

Dates, the main ingredient in both flavors, score low on the glycemic index, which means the naturally occurring carbs work in concert with the fruit’s fiber to keep blood sugar levels stable. All of the other all-natural ingredients - the peanuts and cacao in the Peanut Butter Bar or the almonds, coconut, blueberries or cranberries in Berry Coconut Bar - score low on the glycemic index as well.

Remember, it’s only when blood sugar levels dip below fasting level that your body tells your brain you need to eat more - though your senses can sway your brain based on what you see or smell.

Although the bar comes in two flavors, the taste testers felt a date taste prevailed in both, but that that wasn’t a bad thing. In a 1-to-10 taste-rating score system, all gave either an 8 or 9.

Plus all circled “Yes” instead of “No” in response to a question about whether or not the bar tastes good enough to eat again if taste is the sole consideration.

Those circled yeses serve as a suitable segue to explain that MO Bar Brands has two other bars in the same flavors, the MO Focus Bar and the MO Relief Bar, and why they taste just a little bit different. It’s because while MO Brands agrees food needs to serve a second function, that second function isn’t always providing physical energy for the machine we call you.

Sometimes you need mental clarity. So both flavors of MO Focus Bars contain the same nuts and fruits as the energy bars, plus ashwaganda, lion’s mane, and turmeric and without the guarana powder that aids physical efforts.

And sometimes you need to relax and recover after a tough day or demanding workout. So both flavors of the MO Relief Bars contain chamomile, turmeric, and ginger, all known to have posses restorative powers, as well as kale powder.

The changes caused the taste testers to prefer the first bar over the others.