The Good: Nutritious, Comparatively inexpensive.
The Bad: More bland than in any way noteworthy!
The Basics: General Mills Cinnamon Burst Cheerios cereal is bland. Shockingly bland; even for a Cheerios cereal.
Yesterday was a good day for me in the clearance section of the local grocery store. It seemed that yesterday was a big day for markdowns and that meant I got a lot of fun new things to review. Unfortunately, sometimes some of the things that get liquidated are marked down because they are intensely unpopular. I am betting that is the reason the Cinnamon Burst Cheerios were on the clearance rack.
Basics
General Mills Cinnamon Burst Cheerios cereal is a new twist on an old cereal – Cheerios has been around my entire life! It looks like a mostly smooth ring made of baked corn or oats. The corn Cheerios in this mix are a dull yellow, the oat Cheerios are dull brown. Each Cheerios ring is approximately 1/2” in diameter and about 1/8” tall.
The standard box of Cinnamon Burst Cheerios cereal is 10 oz. That represents approximately nine servings and that seems to be accurate given my experience so far. This cereal is comprised of just the cereal rings themselves, with nothing else in them.
Ease Of Preparation
Cinnamon Burst Cheerios cereal is a breakfast cereal, so this is one of the low-impact breakfast options as far as preparation goes! Simply open the box of Cinnamon Burst Cheerios cereal, pour out a one cup serving (I recommend actually using a measuring cup, especially if you are monitoring your intake) and add 1/2 cup of milk to it. I have discovered, as part of getting healthy, that one of the biggest challenges one might have with breakfast cereal is actually eating the serving size recommended by the manufacturer. This is not a problem with Cinnamon Burst Cheerios, though, as the 1 cup serving seems to be a pretty decent amount of the cereal!
For the purposes of my reviews, and my regular consumption, I only use skim milk (fat free) milk with cereal.
Taste
Cinnamon Burst Cheerios smells lightly of cinnamon. This is a remarkably unimpressive, un-aromatic cinnamon cereal. In fact, after the milk is on it, the Cinnamon Burst Cheerios smells more like Honey Nut Cheerios than it does Cinnamon Toast Crunch!
As for taste, dry Cinnamon Burst Cheerios cereal is generically sweet and dry. The dry taste is what one might expect from a cinnamon-laced cereal, but it is hardly as flavorful as one might hope for from a cereal flavored like cinnamon. Again, the glaze flavor quickly fades from even slightly cinnamon to something more akin to Honey Nut Cheerios.
Covered in milk, the Cinnamon Burst Cheerios have the burst, but lose it very quickly! The flavor is sweet and cinnamon for about thirty seconds after the milk is added. After that, the Cinnamon Burst Cheerios are just dry. In fact, the sweetness gets lost almost immediately and one is left with generic, dry, dull Cheerios. These Cheerios have a strong, dry aftertaste that is utterly indistinct. I did discover that the dry aftertaste, after I was completely finished with eating the cereal, was one of dry, unsweetened cinnamon.
Nutrition
General Mills Cinnamon Burst Cheerios cereal is fairly nutritious on its own and with skim milk! Made primarily of whole grain corn, sugar, and corn bran, the Cinnamon Burst Cheerios ingredient list degenerates into a chemistry equation after “cinnamon,” but there’s not much to the ingredients list after that. This cereal has some preservatives in it, but it also has a separate list of vitamins and minerals, which implies that this is another cereal that has nutrients sprayed onto it. That makes it very important to drink the milk after one has consumed the actual cereal.
A single serving of General Mills Cinnamon Burst Cheerios cereal is 32 grams, 1 cup. In that serving, there are 110 calories, with 15 calories coming from fat. There are no saturated or trans fats in this cereal, nor is there any cholesterol. With 125 mg of sodium and 5 grams of dietary fiber, this is not a bad dietary choice for those striving to improve heart health. With two grams of protein and 85mg potassium, Cinnamon Burst Cheerios is not the absolute healthiest cereal on the market, but it is a decent start to one’s day, at least on the dietary front. On its own, this cereal has significant percentages of nine vitamins and minerals, most notably 50% of the RDAs of Folic Acid.
Storage/Cleanup
Cinnamon Burst Cheerios is a cereal, so as long as it is kept sealed in its box, it ought to remain fresh for quite some time. Obviously, when you are done pouring the cereal from the box, fold down the plastic inner wrap to help maintain the cereal’s freshness.
Cleaning up after Cinnamon Burst Cheerios cereal is simple as well. Simply brush away crumbs left by it and you are done! It is that simple! This is a cereal that does not even discolor the milk added to it, but because you should drink that up to get all the vitamins and minerals General Mills added to the cereal, that shouldn’t be an issue with staining.
Overall
Cinnamon Burst Cheerios cereal might be healthy, but it is not enjoyable to eat. It is, in every way, unimpressive and disappointing to the palate.
For other cereals, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Dulce De Leche Cheerios
Honey Kix
Chocolate Cheerios
4/10
For other food reviews, please visit my Food Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the food reviews I have written!
© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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