Wednesday, July 9, 2014

No More Boring Flavor! Kellogg’s Maple Brown Sugar Frosted Mini-Wheats Satisfy!


The Good: Good taste, Good nutrition, Good ingredients, Reasonably priced
The Bad: Could be more mapley
The Basics: Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats Maple Brown Sugar cereal is a flavorful addition to the Mini-Wheats line and well worth picking up!


When I was a child, I was not allowed to have sugar cereals. My father was very big in providing good nutrition for his children and he saw sugary cereals as empty calories. I’ve never lost the value of having a healthy breakfast and I think that my palate was more refined by not having generically sweet cereals as a child. Still, as an adult, I like sweet treats now and I’m discovering I like sweet treats, including cereals, that have more than just a sugar flavor to them. One of the better cereals I have tried in that regard is Frosted Mini-Wheats Maple Brown Sugar cereal.

Part of the ever-expanding line of Frosted Mini-Wheats cereals, the Maple Brown Sugar is one of the non-fruit flavored selections in the line.

Basics

Kellogg’s Maple Brown Sugar 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 Maple Brown Sugar cereal strives for more complicated sweet flavors and it largely succeeds.

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 Maple Brown Sugar cereal is comprised solely of 5/8” wide by 3/4” biscuits of shredded wheat. One side has the trademark white 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 Maple Brown Sugar cereal smells strongly of maple syrup. The aroma from the cereal overwhelms any hint of brown sugar in the bouquet. The scent is initially strong, but dissipates pretty quickly once the cereal is poured. Still, even once the cereal is out, there is an aroma to this cereal and it is very pleasant to anyone who loves pancakes and syrup!

On its own, the Maple Brown Sugar cereal is sweet and delightfully flavorful. While the wheat flavor has the potential to overwhelm, if one puts the cereal on the tongue frosted side up, when one has the frosted side down on the tongue, the flavor of maple syrup and brown sugar is ridiculously strong. There is nothing that insinuates that this is a healthy cereal in the cereal’s flavor.

With milk, the Maple Brown Sugar Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal changes flavor. The maple flavor quickly soaks out into the milk, while the brown sugar flavor takes over dominating the shredded wheat. Any hint of dryness is easily eliminated by the milk and the milk quickly carries the sweetness of the flavors over the entirety of the cereal.

Dry, this cereal has a very dry aftertaste. With milk, the Maple Brown Sugar flavor has an entirely sweet flavor that lingers in the milk, but does not endure on the tongue after one is done eating it.

Nutrition

Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal is fairly nutritious on its own and with skim milk! Made primarily of whole grain wheat, sugar, and brown sugar, there is nothing unpronounceable in th Maple Brown Sugar Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal. Given that there is a separate listing of vitamins and minerals, I suspect that 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 Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal is 55 grams, 25 biscuits. In that serving, there are 190 calories, with only five 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 23% of the RDA! With five grams of protein and 190 mg potassium, Maple Brown Sugar 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

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 Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal we purchased last month had an expiration date of March 1, 2015. 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 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 only minorly 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 not a cereal that is likely to stain clothes from its milk.

Overall

Frosted Mini-Wheats Maple Brown Sugar cereal is affordable, healthy and has quite a bit of flavor, even if that flavor does not endure very long or in a strong way. This is well worth trying and is enough to encourage cereal fans to try other variations Kellogg’s has come up with!

For other Kellogg’s cereals, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory Chocolatey Almond cereal
Krave Double Chocolate
Special K Fruit & Yogurt

8/10

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

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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