The heftiest mug of French-press coffee couldn’t give me the jolt of that PowerBar Protein Plus health brick I just ate.

That snack bar was a monster. It was really chewy, too. And it tasted good.

I don’t know if it’s the 24 grams of protein, 290 milligrams of sodium or the 10 essential vitamins and seven key minerals — but I’m as alert as a roach with the lights on, hopped knees-up in my chair, gripping the handles and whistling Dixie.

I got that bar of chocolate-covered, peanut-butter crack at the unofficial hub of Richmond — the 7-Eleven at the corner of Harrison and Main streets.

Boy, are those shelves stocked with protein. The store has no fewer than 31 different kinds of “health” bars, along with an uncountable sum of regular, non-health chocolate bars.

I remember it was only a short time ago that these same bars went by names like Choco-Carbs, CarboPower!, and the lesser known It’s Got Good Stuff In It, We Promise.

Now it’s the ProteinPlus bar, the Balance Outdoor 15g-protein bar and the submarine-sized Met-Rx Big 100 Gram Bar with 27 grams of Metamyosyn protein.

What about all those “doctors” cited on the old bars who said carbohydrates were IT, that you couldn’t get enough of ’em?

Those guys must have been whacked-out on herbal ecstasy pills. Charlatans, the whole bunch.

These new-and-improved docs on the new-and-improved bars know what’s up. Protein is the best thing you can eat. Better than carbs and a whole lot better than space-age