The Good: Nutritious, Good flavor when dry
The Bad: Adding milk severely reduces the flavor
The Basics: General Mills Fiber One Honey Clusters cereal might be one of the better Fiber One variations, but its flavor is reduced by the addition of milk!
Of all of the cereals on the market that have “franchised” (created new flavors based on the success of the initial venture), the one that surprised me the most was Fiber One. Fiber One cereal (reviewed here!) always seemed to be marketed as a breakfast cereal for adults. New variants on Fiber One seem to trade on the name Fiber One without bearing any strong resemblance to the original Fiber One. All of the new variants on Fiber One seem to have one thing in common: sweetness. Nowhere is that more true than with Fiber One Honey Clusters! Ironically, the sweetness of this cereal is only maintained when the cereal is kept in dry form (without adding milk).
At $5.99 a box (locally), Fiber One Honey Clusters is a little pricier for the 14.25 oz box than some other cereals, but given current cereal prices and how frequently it seems to go on sale, that is not much of an issue for it.
Basics
General Mills Fiber One Honey Clusters cereal is a very basic cereal. The cereal is comprised of very standard wheat flakes and small (between 1/4" and 3/8” in diameter) oat clusters. The clusters are remarkably infrequent in this cereal, so it is very much a flake-based breakfast experience.
The standard box of Fiber One Honey Clusters cereal is 14.25 oz. That represents approximately eight servings and that is about what I managed to get from my box. This cereal is comprised of just the flakes and clusters without any other embellishment or additives.
Ease Of Preparation
Fiber One Honey Clusters 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 Fiber One Honey Clusters cereal, pour out a one 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 Fiber One Honey Clusters, though, as the one 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 Honey Clusters, the milk seems to steal most of the flavor.
Taste
Fiber One Honey Clusters smell delightfully sweet. The aroma of this cereal is anything but grainy; the honey scent is strong and inviting, which is intriguing for such a generally healthy cereal!
On its own, the sweetness of the honey competes with the dry, grainy wheat flavor of the flakes for the dominant flavor. The cereal is a very dry cereal, which is not enhanced much on the flavor front by the clusters of oats and honey that appear surprisingly infrequently in the Fiber One Honey Clusters cereal. Even though the honey flavor does not dominate the palate, this is still a fairly sweet cereal and one that is not at all unpleasant to eat. The wheat and honey flavors blend nicely so it tastes like a healthy cereal, without healthy being a chore on the taste buds.
With milk, the sweetness quickly washes off. The Fiber One Honey Clusters cereal softens up (save the actual clusters, which – like granola – remain fairly solid for the entire dining experience) and the flavor takes on a very bready, wheaty flavor. The sweetness of the honey saturates the milk, but overall, the cereal becomes much less distinctive or flavorful once milk is added to it.
Nutrition
General Mills Fiber One Honey Clusters cereal is fairly nutritious on its own and with skim milk! Made primarily of whole grain wheat, corn bran, and sugar the Fiber One Honey Clusters 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 Fiber One Honey Clusters cereal is 52 grams or 1 cup. In that serving, there are 170 calories, with 10 calories coming from fat. There are no saturated or trans fats in this cereal, nor is there any cholesterol. With 220 mg of sodium and 10 grams of dietary fiber, this is not a bad dietary choice for those striving to improve heart health. With a decent four grams of protein and 200 mg potassium, Fiber One Honey Clusters is one of the better healthy cereals on the market and it lives up to its promise of starting the day off right! On its own, this cereal has significant percentages of eight vitamins and minerals and 10% of the RDA of four more!
Storage/Cleanup
Fiber One Honey Clusters 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 Fiber One Honey Clusters cereal I purchased last month had an expiration date of April 12, 2015, so it is a decent cereal to stock up on. 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 Fiber One Honey Clusters 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
Fiber One Honey Clusters cereal is good and one almost has to wonder why it bothers to trade on the Fiber One name; it is a solid cereal in its own right and well worth trying!
For other General Mills cereals, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Cinnamon Burst Cheerios
Frosted Toast Crunch
Honey Kix
7.5/10
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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