Saturday, September 22, 2012

I Might Be The Only One I Know Who Does, But . . . I Love Original Fiber One Cereal!


The Good: Nutritious, Tastes good (if dry)
The Bad: A little pricier than other, similar, cereals.
The Basics: General Mills Original Fiber One cereal is a worthwhile, nutritious cereal that is an essential staple cereal.


There are very few healthy cereals from my childhood that I continue to be thrilled by as an adult. Believe it or not, Original Fiber One cereal is one of them. I write “believe it or not” because no one else I know likes the cereal (much less has fond memories of it). I like Fiber One. As a youth, I loved fish and Fiber One reminded me of the fish food at hatcheries that one would buy in order to feed the fish. That’s why I liked it then; I’m not sure why I like it now, other than that it is familiar, tastes good (to me) and is nutritious in a way that I like (unlike something like Total, it does not try to accomplish everything for one’s diet in one bowl!).

At $5.00 a box (locally), Original Fiber One is a little pricier for the one pound (16.2 oz) box than some other cereals, but that might be the only detraction for it.

Basics

General Mills Original Fiber One cereal is a very basic cereal. The brown grain strands are basically bran cylinders. Each Fiber One strand is approximately 3/4” long and about 1/8” in diameter. Most of them are curved

The standard box of Original Fiber One cereal is 16.2 oz. That represents approximately fifteen servings and they are packaged in the box in two plastic bags. This cereal is comprised of just the cereal strands themselves, with nothing else in them.

Ease Of Preparation

Original Fiber One 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 Original Fiber One cereal, pour out a half 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 Original Fiber One, though, as the 1/2 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. When milk is added to Fiber One, it absorbs it surprisingly fast.

Taste

Original Fiber One smell very subtly of brown sugar and grain. This cereal, objectively, smells like corrugated cardboard.

As for taste, dry Original Fiber One cereal is very dry and only lightly sweetened. The outside tastes like it has the most faint coating of caramel that melts away to taste like a bran muffin. On its own, it leaves an exceptionally dry aftertaste.

When milk is added, Original Fiber One oddly tastes a little saltier. The dryness of the cereal dissipates and the sweetness spreads through all of the strands of cereal in the bowl. The milk becomes very sweetly flavored, as if by brown sugar or caramel (neither of which are ingredients in Fiber One), but the cereal tastes like a crispy bran muffin. This is a very grainy flavored cereal. The sweetness that it is infused with actually makes the grain flavor delicious and more than what it initially seems on the tastebuds.

Nutrition

General Mills Original Fiber One cereal is fairly nutritious on its own and with skim milk! Made primarily of whole grain wheat, corn bran, and modified wheat starch, the Original Fiber One ingredient list is largely natural. 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 Original Fiber One cereal is 30 grams, 1/2 cup. In that serving, there are 60 calories, with 10 calories coming from fat. There are no saturated or trans fats in this cereal, nor is there any cholesterol. With 105 mg of sodium and 14 grams of dietary fiber, this is not a bad dietary choice for those striving to improve heart health. With two grams of protein and 100 mg potassium, Original Fiber One 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 eight vitamins and minerals!

Storage/Cleanup

Original Fiber One 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 Original Fiber One cereal I purchased in April, 2012, had an expiration date of April 5, 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 Original Fiber One cereal is simple as well. Simply brush away crumbs left by it and you are done! It is that easy! This is a cereal that barely 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

Original Fiber One cereal is healthy and tastes good, making it a worthwhile breakfast option, regardless of the expense!

For other General Mills cereals, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Dulce De Leche Cheerios
Frosted Toast Crunch
Honey Kix

9/10

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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