Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Kellogg's Blueberry Frosted Mini-Wheats Will Disappoint Anyone Who Loves Blueberries!


The Good: Decent nutrition, Reasonably priced, Does not taste bad
The Bad: Tastes nothing like actual blueberries, Unexceptional ingredients
The Basics: Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats Blueberry cereal has nothing on adding actual blueberries to Frosted Mini-Wheats . . . on the flavor or nutrition fronts!


I feel bad, sometimes, for breakfast cereal manufacturers. The breakfast cereal market seems to be a pretty competitive one and the manufacturers seem to be in a constant battle to innovate, as opposed to duke it out in the marketplace with their tried and true, "greatest hits." And part of the appeal to the cereal concept is convenience. So, it seems like a natural progression for the cereal companies to try to add fruit - or fruit flavors - to their standard cereals and try to market the cereals as something new. Sadly, in the case of Frosted Mini-Wheats, adding fruit flavor to the frosting does not yield the same - or even comparable - results as adding fruit to the cereal. Such is the downfall of Blueberry Frosted Mini-Wheats.

Part of the ever-expanding line of Frosted Mini-Wheats cereals, the Blueberry Frosted Mini-Wheats is one of the few unremarkable selections in the line.

Basics

Kellogg’s Blueberry Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal is a newer twist on the tried and true Frosted Mini-Wheats formula. Instead of simply being a generic sugar flavor, the Blueberry cereal strives for more complicated sweet flavors, but it fails to accurately replicate the flavor of blueberries.

The standard box of Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal is 15.5 oz. That represents approximately eight servings and my box made it to the full eight servings when I measured each one out to 25 pieces per serving. The actual Blueberry cereal is comprised solely of 5/8” wide by 3/4” biscuits of shredded wheat. One side has the light purple frosted side (it is also where the rest of the flavoring is apparently painted on) and one “naked” shredded wheat side.

Ease Of Preparation

Frosted Mini-Wheats 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 Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal, count out twenty-five biscuits and put them in a bowl. 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. Given that I have been monitoring my intake for a couple of months now, I am now able to enjoy a single serving of only 25 pieces of Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal in a sitting!

For the purposes of my reviews, and my regular consumption, I only use skim milk (fat free) milk when reviewing Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal.

Taste

Opening the box, Frosted Mini-Wheats Blueberry cereal smells weakly of fruit. The Blueberry Frosted Mini-Wheats are not very aromatic and the blueberry aroma is more vague than distinct.

On its own, the Blueberry cereal is very sweet and generically fruity in its flavoring. The Blueberry Frosted Mini-Wheats are dry and grainy with the frosted side providing a somewhat underwhelming sweetness. The aroma from the Blueberry Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal foreshadows its weak and barely fruity-flavor. The Blueberry Frosted Mini-Wheats taste more like a diluted flavor of what people think blueberries might taste like as opposed to anything realistically blueberry-flavored.

With milk, the Blueberry Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal loses the dryness, but becomes no more flavorful than it is when it is dry. In fact, the Blueberry Frosted Mini-Wheats have a strong wheat flavor and the milk takes on the sweet frosting flavor . . . without taking on any more flavor of actual blueberries.

The Blueberry Frosted Mini-Wheats have a slightly dry aftertaste that endures in the mouth for several minutes after the last of the cereal is consumed.

Nutrition

Kellogg’s Blueberry Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal is fairly nutritious on its own and with skim milk! Made primarily of whole grain wheat, sugar, and milled corn, there is nothing unpronounceable in the Blueberry Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal. There is, however, nothing resembling actual blueberries in the Blueberry Frosted Mini-Wheats, so it is somewhat unsurprising that there is very little in the way of blueberry flavoring in the cereal. Given that there is a separate listing of vitamins and minerals, I suspect that Blueberry Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal is one of those cereals where the nutrients are then sprayed onto the cereal, making it important to drink the milk with this cereal in order to get all of the nutritional benefits out of it.

A single serving of Kellogg’s Blueberry Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal is 55 grams, 25 biscuits. In that serving, there are 190 calories, with ten of those calories coming from fat. There is no saturated fat in this cereal, nor cholesterol. With no sodium as well, one might think this shredded wheat could be devoid of any real nutrition, but it has 6 grams of dietary fiber, which is 22% of the RDA! With five grams of protein and 190 mg potassium, Blueberry Frosted Mini-Wheats has more nutritional benefits than the average sugary cereal. On its own, this cereal has 25% or more of the RDA seven vitamins and minerals, with significant quantities of Iron (90% RDA) and Folic Acid (50% RDA).

Storage/Cleanup

Blueberry Frosted Mini-Wheats is a cereal, so as long as it is kept sealed in its box, it ought to remain fresh for quite some time. The box of Blueberry Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal we purchased last week had an expiration date of November 19, 2018. 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 Blueberry Frosted Mini-Wheats 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 significantly discolors the milk added to it, though, so if the milk gets on your clothing consult a fabric guide to clean it out. Still, it is a cereal that will easily stain light colored clothes.

Overall

Frosted Mini-Wheats Blueberry cereal is interesting, even if it is not entirely evocative of actual blueberry flavor.

For other Kellogg’s cereals, please check out my reviews of:
Froot Loops With Fruity Shaped Marshmallows
Frosted Mini-Wheats Pumpkin Spice Cereal
Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory Chocolatey Almond

3/10

For other cereal reviews, please visit my Cereal Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the food reviews I have written!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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