Wednesday, July 11, 2012

It Might Be Healthy, But Chocolate Cheerios Is Weaker And Drier Than I’d Prefer.


The Good: Nutritious, Comparatively inexpensive.
The Bad: Not the best chocolate taste, Strong dry aftertaste
The Basics: General Mills Chocolate Cheerios cereal is weaker with milk and has a dry, grainy taste regardless.


As I make the plans necessary to make the move from New York state – where I have lived my entire life – to Michigan, where my wife is from and might have employment opportunities beyond the summer, I think one of my biggest concerns with the move is the supermarkets. I like my supermarkets here; I so frequently get good food inexpensively to try for ridiculous or unfathomable reasons. So, for example, the box of Chocolate Cheerios I opened this morning for enjoyment and review was one I bought at half price because the outer box was damaged! I don’t even know if places in Michigan would do deals like that, especially in the wilderness parts to which my wife would have me move!

Of one thing I am sure: the damaged box did not change the taste of the Chocolate Cheerios. It would be pretty hard for me to get excited about paying anything more than the $2.24 I did on a box of this cereal regularly.

Basics

General Mills Chocolate 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. Each Cheerios ring is approximately 1/2” in diameter and about 1/8” tall. The Chocolate Cheerios rings are brown – both dark and light.

The standard box of Chocolate Cheerios cereal is 11.25 oz. That represents approximately twelve servings and I measured it out and came up just shy of that (very close). This cereal is comprised of just the cereal rings themselves, with nothing else in them.

Ease Of Preparation

Chocolate 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 Chocolate Cheerios cereal, pour out a three-quarter 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 Chocolate Cheerios, though, as the 3/4 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

Chocolate Cheerios smell very subtly of chocolate. Actually, they smell very much like cocoa powder, like what one expects when they open a canister of hot cocoa powder. It is that manufactured, somewhat diluted milk chocolate scent that Chocolate Cheerios possess.

As for taste, dry Chocolate Cheerios cereal is an intriguing mix of sweet and dry. Without milk the flavor tends toward a drier, darker chocolate flavor with remarkably little sweetness to it. Unfortunately, in that state, Chocolate Cheerios leaves a very dry aftertaste in the mouth and leaves one pretty desperate for something to drink.

Covered in milk, the Chocolate Cheerios have a very diluted chocolate flavor to them. The flavor is almost precisely the same as having regular Cheerios with chocolate milk. The chocolate flavor is very subtle and tastes more artificial than real. The flavor is weaker and grainier than most consumers who love chocolate will want. Even with milk, there is a strong, dry aftertaste that might be reminiscent of dark chocolate, but in this product has the net effect of accenting the grain flavors.

Nutrition

General Mills Chocolate Cheerios cereal is fairly nutritious on its own and with skim milk! Made primarily of whole grain corn, sugar, and corn syrup, the Chocolate Cheerios ingredient list degenerates into a chemistry equation after “barley malt exract.” 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 Chocolate Cheerios cereal is 27 grams, 3/4 cups. In that serving, there are 100 calories, with 10 calories coming from fat. There are no saturated or trans fats in this cereal, nor is there any cholesterol. With 170 mg of sodium and 2 grams of dietary fiber, this is not a bad dietary choice for those striving to improve heart health. With only a single gram of protein and 75mg potassium, Chocolate Cheerios is not the absolute healthiest cereal on the market. On its own, this cereal has significant percentages of nine vitamins and minerals, most notably 50% of the RDA of Folic Acid!

Storage/Cleanup

Chocolate Cheerios 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 Chocolate Cheerios cereal I purchased on July 5, 2012 had an expiration date of April 23, 2013. I am quite positive it will be gone well before then. 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 Chocolate 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 discolors 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

Chocolate Cheerios cereal is healthy, but it does not possess a strong or intriguing-enough taste to truly thrill consumers.

For other cereals, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Honey Kix
Original Life Cereal
Quaker Oatmeal Squares with a hint of brown sugar

4.5/10

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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