Wednesday, October 2, 2013

It Doesn’t Suck Up All The Milk; Grape-Nuts Flakes Doesn’t Suck!


The Good: Fairly nutritious, Affordable, Not a milk leach like traditional Grape-Nuts
The Bad: Very bland on their own, Could be more nutritious, I suppose.
The Basics: Post Grape-Nuts Flakes cereal is bland, but not as unremarkable as its namesake.


When I think of Grape-Nuts Cereal, I think of how the tiny nuggets of cereal absorb milk. There is something crazy about a cereal that is so hard and compact that it does not get significantly softer with equal parts milk and cereal! When I tried Grape-Nuts Flakes a few years back, I recalled that it did not have the same issue. As a reviewer, I thought it would be a good time to try the cereal again. Grape-Nuts Flakes is largely unremarkable, but it is not a bad cereal at all.

Grape-Nuts Flakes cereal is a flake-based cereal that absorbs the milk, but not excessively.

Basics

Post Grape-Nuts Flakes cereal is a cereal with flakes of wheat and oats. It looks like a very typical collection of flakes, most about 1/2” to 3/4” in two directions, thin and textured, with most of the small flakes being slightly curved. Grape-Nuts cereal now comes in a few different varieties.

The standard box of Grape-Nuts Flakes cereal is 18 oz. That represents approximately eighteen servings and I was able to get a little over seventeen servings and a generous helping of crumbs and cereal dust out of the box I bought. This cereal features only traditional flakes, with no additives.

Ease Of Preparation

Grape-Nuts Flakes 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 Grape-Nuts Flakes cereal, pour out 3/4 cup (I’ve taken to using a measuring cup) 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. Given that I have been monitoring my intake for several weeks now, I am now able to enjoy only 3/4 cup of Grape-Nuts Flakes cereal in a sitting, though it is not as filling as some other cereals I have had.

For the purposes of my reviews, and my regular consumption, I only use skim milk (fat free) milk with cereal.

Taste

The Grape-Nuts Flakes have no real scent to them. These flakes are very muted in their aroma and there is nothing inviting about the way they smell.

On their own, the flakes are exceptionally bland. These taste like corn and rice, with no flair to them; the aroma is a realistic foreshadowing of the flavor.

With milk, there is a slight sweetness that comes out of the flakes and it is only with milk that they take on the more familiar traditional Grape-Nuts grainy flavor. The Grape-Nuts Flakes have an initial sweetness to them as well, before they finish dry and not sweet at all.

This simple cereal has a rather dry aftertaste, though it is not as dry as traditional Grape-Nuts cereal!

Nutrition

Post Grape-Nuts Flakes cereal is pretty nutritious on its own and with skim milk. Made primarily of whole grain wheat, wheat flour, and sugar, there is nothing unpronounceable in Grape-Nuts Flakes cereal. Given that there is a separate listing of vitamins and minerals, I suspect that Grape-Nuts Flakes 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 Post Grape-Nuts Flakes cereal is 29 grams, 3/4 cup. In that serving, there are 110 calories, with 10 calories coming from fat. There is no saturated fat in this cereal, nor is there any cholesterol. With only 125 mg of sodium and three grams of dietary fiber, this is a good dietary choice for those striving to improve heart health. With three grams of protein and 100mg potassium, Grape-Nuts Flakes is healthy enough. On its own, this cereal has significant percentages of nine vitamins and minerals (including 50% of one’s RDA of Folic Acid!).

Storage/Cleanup

Grape-Nuts Flakes 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 Grape-Nuts Flakes cereal we purchased on August 15, 2013 had an expiration date of May 2, 2014, so it is a pretty enduring cereal! 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 Grape-Nuts Flakes 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!

Overall

Grape-Nuts Flakes cereal is slightly sweeter than traditional Grape-Nuts cereal and that makes all the difference for recommending it. It is more edible and enjoyable than its namesake, even if it is still pretty bland and mostly consumed for the nutrition than the flavor.

For other breakfast cereals, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Honey Bunches Of Oats With Cinnamon Bunches
Fiber One Honey Squares
Kellogg's Krave Double Chocolate

6.5/10

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

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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