Weird Concept, Weird Execution: Strawberry Toast Crunch!

The Good: Nutritious enough, Comparatively inexpensive.
The Bad: Not strongly flavored
The Basics: General Mills Strawberry Toast Crunch cereal is sweet and odd, when it is not an unfortunately dull cereal.


Of all of the cereal types to franchise, Cinnamon Toast Crunch seemed like an odd one. The idea of cinnamon toast is fine enough and a clear concept; expanding beyond that is somewhat strange. Arguably, the strangest variation on the theme has come in the form of Strawberry Toast Crunch. Objectively, it's hard to even say what the point is of Strawberry Toast Crunch cereal; there does not appear to be an analogous product in real life. Strawberry toast?! Strawberry Toast Crunch seems like a desperate attempt to present the illusion of fruit into an obvious sugar cereal.

Basics

General Mills Strawberry Toast Crunch cereal is a new twist on a familiar old cereal – Cinnamon Toast Crunch has been around almost my entire life! It looks like a baked square flake made of baked oats and corn and generally sprinkled to look as if it was a mini piece of strawberry bread (like raisin bread) coated in powdered sugar. Each Strawberry Toast Crunch flake is approximately 1” x 3/4" and less than 1/8” thick. The white squares are fairly uniform in their appearance, though they do not particularly look like toast wedges.

The standard box of Strawberry Toast Crunch cereal is 11.1 oz. That represents approximately eleven servings and my box came out to just about eleven servings. This cereal is comprised of just the square cereal bits themselves, with nothing else in them.

Ease Of Preparation

Strawberry Toast Crunch 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 Strawberry Toast Crunch cereal, pour out three-quarters of a 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.

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

Taste

Strawberry Toast Crunch smells very sweet and vaguely fruity. The cereal does have a basic strawberry aroma, though the scent is mixed with a sweet, frostinglike, smell.

In the mouth, Strawberry Toast Crunch changes with almost every bite. While many of the squares are sweet, few actually pop with the real and genuine flavor of strawberry. Instead of the vaguely sugary and generically dry, most of the squares of Strawberry Toast Crunch just taste like grain and sugar. There is a slight strawberry flavor on some of the "toast" pieces, but most are overwhelmed by the oat flavor.

With milk, Strawberry Toast Crunch tastes very grainy. The oat and corn dominates the palate, even more than the sweet, sugary coating. The strawberry flavor manifests entirely as an aftertaste, unfortunately. Even that hint of fruit flavor does not endure long before even milk overwhelms the palate.

Strawberry Toast Crunch, interestingly, does not leave an aftertaste in the mouth.

Nutrition

General Mills Strawberry Toast Crunch cereal is fairly nutritious on its own and with skim milk! Made primarily of whole grain oats, whole grain corn and sugar, the Strawberry Toast Crunch ingredient list is pretty simple and almost entirely recognizable. 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 Strawberry Toast Crunch cereal is 28 grams, 3/4 cups. In that serving, there are 120 calories, with 25 calories coming from fat. There is 1 gram of saturated, .5 g polyunsaturated, and 1 gram of monounsaturated fats in this cereal, but there is no cholesterol. With 120 mg of sodium and only a gram of dietary fiber, this is not a terrible dietary choice for those striving to improve heart health. With two grams of protein and 55 mg potassium, Strawberry Toast Crunch has some decent nutritional elements other cereals do not. On its own, this cereal has significant percentages of eight vitamins and minerals.

Storage/Cleanup

Strawberry Toast Crunch 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 Strawberry Toast Crunch cereal I purchased last week had an expiration date of August 5, 2018. 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 Strawberry Toast Crunch cereal is simple as well. Simply brush away crumbs left by it and you are done! It is that simple! This cereal does have dry flavored sugar powder that easily comes off its squares and that might need to be wiped up. If you get the colored milk from this cereal on your clothes, be sure to consult a fabric guide for how best to clean it out of your garments.

Overall

Strawberry Toast Crunch cereal does not taste bad, but outside its nutritional benefits, it is unfortunately lackluster from concept through execution.

For other General Mills cereals, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Kellogg’s Cinnamon Jacks
Fiber One Honey Clusters
Post Grape-Nut Flakes

1.5/10

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

© 2018 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Fiber One Makes Granola?! Fiber One Protein Cranberry Almond Cereal Is All Right!

The Good: Good ingredients, Wonderful flavor
The Bad: Surprisingly not terribly nutritious!
The Basics: General Mills Fiber One Protein Cranberry Almond gives Fiber One a granola twist that is not unpleasant, but not incredibly nutritious, either!


Over the years, one of the cereals that has intrigued me most with the way it has been franchised is Fiber One. I enjoy Fiber One cereal (reviewed here!), but I know that it is something of an acquired taste and that I am in the minority of loving the “fish food” cereal. So, trying to diversify from the original cereal makes sense to me and seems to be a good strategy for General Mills. The latest flavor of the franchise I have tracked down is Fiber One Protein Cranberry Almond. Fiber One Protein Cranberry Almond is notable in that it is a granola cereal, instead of a flake or “pellet” cereal like other Fiber One variants I have reviewed.

At $3.99 a box (locally), Fiber One Protein Cranberry Almond is competitively priced for a granola cereal. I lucked out and found mine on clearance, so I am unsure how much longer Fiber One Protein Cranberry Almond granola cereal will be on the market.

Basics

General Mills Fiber One Protein Cranberry Almond cereal is a very basic granola cereal with a limited dried fruit additive. The cereal comes in a 15.8 oz. box and that’s a little larger than traditional granola boxes. The cereal is comprised of entirely irregular clusters and pieces that range from looking like flat oats to puffed rice pieces. Occasionally, there are tiny pieces of dried cranberries. The almonds are so broken up that they blend entirely with the rest of the granola.

The standard box of Fiber One Protein Cranberry Almond cereal is 15.8 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 clusters and dried fruit without any other embellishment or additives.

Ease Of Preparation

Fiber One Protein Cranberry Almond 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 Protein Cranberry Almond 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 Protein Cranberry Almond, 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 Protein Cranberry Almond cereal, much of it gets absorbed into the cereal over the course of ten minutes (so eat it quickly if you want milk and crunchy cereal!).

Taste

Fiber One Protein Cranberry Almond smells like honey without any hint of cranberry to it. The aroma is very faint and is accented by the addition of milk. On its own, it only has a scent when one gets one’s nose right up in it!

Without milk, the sweetness of the honey competes with the fairly bland, oat flavor of the granola clusters. The sourness of the occasional cranberry piece is limited to the bite in which the cranberry appears. There is no distinct or noticeable flavor from the almonds in this granola. The honey flavor is fairly weak, especially compared to the grainy granola that dominates the palate.

With milk, the sweetness spreads throughout the entire bowl. Milk also manages to help eliminate the cereals inherent dryness and grainy primary flavor. Interestingly, the addition of milk completely sublimates any flavor from the dried cranberries in the Fiber One Protein Cranberry Almond cereal. With the addition of milk, Fiber One Protein Cranberry Almond simply becomes a honey-flavored crunchy cereal.

The Fiber One Protein Cranberry Almond granola leaves no distinct aftertaste once one is done consuming it.

Nutrition

General Mills Fiber One Protein Cranberry Almond cereal is fairly nutritious on its own and with skim milk! Made primarily of whole grain oats, sugar and crisp rice the Fiber One Protein Cranberry Almond ingredient list is mostly natural and familiar. 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 Protein Cranberry Almond cereal is 55 grams or 1 cup. In that serving, there are 220 calories, with 45 calories coming from fat. There is half a gram of saturated, but no trans fats in this cereal, nor is there any cholesterol. With 140 mg of sodium and 5 grams of dietary fiber, this is not a bad dietary choice for those striving to improve heart health. With an impressive six grams of protein and 115 mg potassium, Fiber One Protein Cranberry Almond is not bad, but it is not one of the more nutrient-loaded breakfast cereals on the market. Fiber One Protein Cranberry Almond cereal only has more than 10% of the RDA of one nutrient (15% of one’s daily Iron).

General Mills includes an allergy warning for wheat, soy, almonds, milk, and pecans, so it is not vegan compliant. It is not marked as Kosher, either.

Storage/Cleanup

Fiber One Protein Cranberry Almond is a cereal, so as long as it is kept sealed in its box, it ought to remain fresh for quite some time. 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 Protein Cranberry Almond 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 Protein Cranberry Almond cereal is not bad, but it is hardly an extraordinary rendition of granola. That makes it a very average breakfast cereal.

For other General Mills cereals, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Peanut Butter Toast Crunch
Multigrain Cheerios Peanut Butter Cereal
Cinnamon Burst Cheerios

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!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Not Enough To Entice: Peanut Butter Toast Crunch Underwhelms!

The Good: Nutritious enough, Comparatively inexpensive.
The Bad: Not strongly flavored, Very grainy
The Basics: General Mills Peanut Butter Toast Crunch cereal is a cereal dud, despite being surprisingly nutritious!


Lately, it seems like breakfast cereals have been disappointing me. It has been a while since one wowed me and when I picked up Peanut Butter Toast Crunch, I had hopes that it would, at least, live up to the execution of Frosted Toast Crunch (reviewed here!). It, alas, did not. My wife and I love peanut butter and while she thought Peanut Butter Toast Crunch was okay, I found it to be thoroughly underwhelming. Initially, the big strike against Peanut Butter Toast Crunch was that it was not very strongly flavored; the more I consumed, the more troubling the fact that the underlying grains from the cereal are the dominant flavor became troubling.

Basics

General Mills Peanut Butter Toast Crunch cereal is a new twist on a familiar old cereal – Cinnamon Toast Crunch has been around almost my entire life! It looks like a baked square flake made of baked wheat and rice and generally sprinkled to look as if it was lightly frosted with some strange powdered peanut butter. Each Peanut Butter Toast Crunch flake is approximately 1” x 3/4" and less than 1/8” thick. The brown squares are fairly uniform in their appearance, though they do not particularly look like toast wedges (they do, however, look like a powdered version of Golden Grahams!).

The standard box of Peanut Butter Toast Crunch cereal is 12 oz. That represents approximately eleven servings and my box came out to just about eleven servings. This cereal is comprised of just the square cereal bits themselves, with nothing else in them.

Ease Of Preparation

Peanut Butter Toast Crunch 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 Peanut Butter Toast Crunch cereal, pour out three-quarters of a 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.

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

Taste

Peanut Butter Toast Crunch smells strongly enough of peanut butter. The aroma is simple, slightly sweet, and very nutty. The aroma prepares the consumer for a cereal that is far more flavorful than this cereal actually is.

Dry on the tongue, Peanut Butter Toast Crunch has real hit or miss flavor delivery. While most of the squares are sweet, few actually pop with the real and genuine flavor of peanut butter. Instead of the vaguely sugary and somewhat nutty flavor, most of the squares of Peanut Butter Toast Crunch just taste like wheat and rice. The dry, grainy flavor dominates the palate as the sweetness of the coating wears off in the mouth.

With milk, Peanut Butter Toast Crunch becomes even drier (if that’s possible). The mild peanut butter flavor washes right off, leaving a wheaty flavor behind. Oddly, the powder that washes off the cereal into the milk does not sweeten the milk much. The result is a shockingly bland grain cereal.

Other than leaving the mouth fairly dry, Peanut Butter Toast Crunch does not have a strong aftertaste.

Nutrition

General Mills Peanut Butter Toast Crunch cereal is fairly nutritious on its own and with skim milk! Made primarily of whole grain wheat, sugar and rice flour, the Peanut Butter Toast Crunch ingredient list degenerates into a chemistry equation after “rice bran.” 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 Peanut Butter Toast Crunch cereal is 31 grams, 3/4 cups. In that serving, there are 130 calories, with 25 calories coming from fat. There are .5 grams of saturated, 1 g polyunsaturated, and 1.5 grams of monounsaturated fats in this cereal, but there is no cholesterol. With 140 mg of sodium and only a gram of dietary fiber, this is not a terrible dietary choice for those striving to improve heart health. With two grams of protein and 80mg potassium, Peanut Butter Toast Crunch has some decent nutritional elements other cereals do not. On its own, this cereal has significant percentages of eight vitamins and minerals, though none only Zinc has greater than 25% of the RDA!

Storage/Cleanup

Peanut Butter Toast Crunch 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 Peanut Butter Toast Crunch cereal I purchased on February 1, 2015 had an expiration date of September 16, 2015, but my wife will eat it up 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 Peanut Butter Toast Crunch cereal is simple as well. Simply brush away crumbs left by it and you are done! It is that simple! This cereal does have dry peanut butter powder that easily comes off its squares and that might need to be wiped up. If you get the colored milk from this cereal on your clothes, be sure to consult a fabric guide for how best to clean it out of your garments.

Overall

Peanut Butter Toast Crunch cereal was primarily bland and were it not for its nutritional benefits, it would be utterly unworthy trying.

For other cereals, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Kellogg’s Cinnamon Jacks
Fiber One Honey Clusters
Post Grape-Nut Flakes

2/10

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

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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For While You Still Have Your New Year’s Resolution . . . Fiber One Cinnamon Coffee Cake 90 Calorie Bars!

The Good: Delicious, Very healthy
The Bad: Very breakable, Comparatively expensive
The Basics: Fiber One Cinnamon Coffee Cake 90 Calorie Bars are a healthy treat that tastes exactly like it is supposed to and can act as a decent placeholder for its high-calorie namesake!


Happy New Year! As we go into our first weekend of the New Year, those who have weight loss-related resolutions for the year are facing their first challenges! The temptation of having more time, especially when the multitude of yummy Christmas treats are getting clearanced; I know of what I speak – locally Wonderful Sweet Chili Pistachios (reviewed here!) and Salt & Pepper Pistachios are being clearanced and it took all my willpower to not just buy my local grocery store out of them! But, rather than act as a herald to the likelihood of Resolution Fatigue, I thought I would offer a solution to those who might need that kind of boost: Fiber One Cinnamon Coffee Cake 90 Calorie Bars!

Having absolutely nothing to do with Fiber One Cereal (reviewed here!), the Cinnamon Coffee Cake Fiber One 90 Calorie Bars are intended to act as a more healthy snack than actual coffee cake and, despite the expense, they live up to that. They also teach consumers a very valuable lesson about weight control (if not hunger management): the first real hurdle in eating healthier is consuming closer to the recommended serving size than one might be used to. At least, despite not filling one up, the Fiber One Cinnamon Coffee Cake 90 Calorie Bars make portion control ridiculously easy!

Basics

Fiber One is perhaps best known for making the breakfast cereal that is reminiscent of fish food. Fiber One is a brand name that has become a big part of General Mills’ expansion into snack foods, even when it bears no resemblance to the cereal! Their 90 Calorie Bars come in several flavors and I chose the Cinnamon Coffee Cake 90 Calorie Bar because they were on clearance at my local grocery store and, frankly, I like coffee cake.

Each Cinnamon Coffee Cake 90 Calorie Bar is in a .89 oz. bar that is foil-wrapped. Each bar represents a single serving and the 90 Calorie Bars are each 2 1/4” wide by 2 1/8” long by 1/2” thick (at its thickest point, these bars have curved tops) until they are broken or squished (which happens ridiculously easily). A box of Cinnamon Coffee Cake 90 Calorie Bar contains only six bars. Each bar looks like an oversized Fig Newton an anemic white icing drizzle on the top side of it.

Ease Of Preparation

Eating Fiber One Cinnamon Coffee Cake 90 Calorie Bars is simple. After removing the foil wrapper, simply pull out the bar and stick it in your mouth. There is no particularly complicated equation to eating this snack; it is an entirely ready-to-eat food!

Taste

Unwrapping the Cinnamon Coffee Cake 90 Calorie Bar, one is immediately greeted by a strongly cinnamon aroma. The scent is inviting to anyone who loves coffee cake and who might have had concerns that a healthy snack mimicking the treat would be less impressive on the flavor front.

Placing the 90 Calorie Bar in my mouth, I was very surprised by how this bar was not dry or mealy at all! Instead, the flavors of brown sugar and cinnamon blend with the floury goodness to perfectly embody the flavors of coffee cake. While the tiny drizzle of icing on the top of the Cinnamon Coffee Cake 90 Calorie Bars is generically sweet and breaks off constantly and easily, the substance of the Fiber One 90 Calorie Bar is substantive and flavorful and exactly what one might hope for when having coffee cake (diet or no!)

This treat, surprisingly, does not have an aftertaste!

Nutrition

Fiber One 90 Calorie Bars are intended as a snack and while they might keep the mouth busy, they are not so substantive as to make hunger truly abate. These .89 oz. 90 Calorie Bar represent a single serving each and they are fairly healthy. Made primarily of Wheat Flour Bleached, Sugar, and Chicory root extract, what surprised me was how there was nothing in these bars that was unpronounceable or at all seems suspect. This is a mostly-natural food product and these 90 Calorie Bar were produced on equipment that may leave the bar with traces of peanuts, wheat, soy, walnut and macadamia nut ingredients. There is also a dietary disclaimer that this flavor contains egg and milk, so they are not Vegan-compliant.

Fiber One's Cinnamon Coffee Cake 90 Calorie Bars have 90 calories, 25 of which are from fat. A full serving represents 5% of one's RDA of saturated fat and these are cholesterol free. Surprisingly, they are fairly low in sodium with only 85 mg per serving and there are, unfortunately, 0 grams of protein in a full bar. These are not a significant source of vitamins or minerals, though they do have 5% of one’s daily dietary fiber requirements!

Storage/Cleanup

As a healthy snack, Fiber One Cinnamon Coffee Cake 90 Calorie Bar remain fresh so long as they are kept in their wrappers. As long as the bars are not heated up, they remain fresh and the only real clean-up for them comes from wiping up crumbs, especially from the icing which seems to crack off more than the rest of the treat breaks apart.

Overall

Fiber One Cinnamon Coffee Cake 90 Calorie Bars are surprisingly good and while it might be counterproductive that General Mills makes them so delicious that one might want more than one, they are a good portion size to get consumers on their way to a more healthy lifestyle (or maintain it once they are there).

For other reviews of healthy food, please check out:
Fiber One Chocolate Peanut Butter Meal Bars
Truvia Sugar Substitute
Bolthouse Farms Daily Roots

6.5/10

For other food and drink reviews, please check out my Food And Drink Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Dry, But Not Unpleasant, Apple Cinnamon Chex Cereal Succeeds!

The Good: Nutritious, Comparatively inexpensive, Flavorful
The Bad: Flavor is inconsistent, Could be a bit more nutritious
The Basics: General Mills Apple Cinnamon Chex cereal is a delightful addition to the Chex cereal line, even if it is inconsistent!


When it comes to cereal, it is a rare thing for me to encounter one that I like, but has a problem with maintaining my interest. Despite reviewing a lot of different things, I actually have a great deal of product loyalty. As a result, products I review that I add to my regular rotation and stock for my personal pantry are usually ones that have very minimal problems. Apple Cinnamon Chex certainly falls into that category. This cereal suffers most from inconsistency; half of the Chex are coated in the flavoring, half are pretty much bare.

Basics

General Mills Apple Cinnamon Chex cereal is a continuation of the cereal line that made its initial varieties different only by the type of grain the Chex was made up of. Now, the cereal has different coatings and flavors in addition to the different grains for the basic pieces. The Chex in the Apple Cinnamon Chex are rice Chex that are coated in cinnamon apple flavored. Each Chex is a lattice of grain that is 3/4” long by 9/16” wide by 5/16” thick.

The standard box of Apple Cinnamon Chex cereal is 13.75 oz. That represents approximately twelve servings and that seems to be accurate given my experience so far. This cereal is comprised of just the cereal blocks themselves, with nothing else in them.

Ease Of Preparation

Apple Cinnamon Chex 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 Apple Cinnamon Chex 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.

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

Taste

Apple Cinnamon Chex smells a decent amount like cinnamon with hints of apple. The apple scent comes as more of an afterscent to the cereal. The aroma of this cereal is hardly what one would describe as potent.

As for taste, dry Apple Cinnamon Chex cereal is sweet and dry. The cereal is split between two very different flavors. About half of the rice Chex are not coated in flavor sugar. Those Chex are very dry and utterly unremarkable. They might as well be unflavored. The rest of the Apple Cinnamon Chex are coated in cinnamon sugar and they are sweet and slightly fruity. The fully-flavored pieces of Apple Cinnamon Chex are sweet and rich with the flavor of cinnamon.

Covered in milk, the Apple Cinnamon Chex explode with the sweet flavor of apples. The cereal has a more homogenous flavor and the apple flavor is prevalent throughout. The sweet, fruity cereal finishes with a flavor of cinnamon and the dryness is not so extreme as to be unpleasant.

Either way, the Apple Cinnamon Chex have a dry aftertaste that stays in the mouth for about five minutes.

Nutrition

General Mills Apple Cinnamon Chex cereal is fairly nutritious on its own and with skim milk! Made primarily of whole grain rice, rice and sugar, the Apple Cinnamon Chex ingredient list degenerates into a chemistry equation after “molasses,” but there’s not much to the ingredients list after that. This cereal has some preservatives in it and 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 Apple Cinnamon Chex cereal is 31 grams, 3/4 cup. In that serving, there are 130 calories, with 20 calories coming from fat. There are no saturated or trans fats in this cereal, nor is there any cholesterol. With 190 mg of sodium and less than a gram of dietary fiber, this is not a bad dietary choice for those striving to improve heart health, though it could certainly be better. With only a gram of protein and 40mg potassium, Apple Cinnamon Chex 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, most notably 50% of the RDAs of Folic Acid and Iron.

Storage/Cleanup

Apple Cinnamon Chex is a cereal, so as long as it is kept sealed in its box, it ought to remain fresh for quite some time. 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 Apple Cinnamon Chex 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 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

Apple Cinnamon Chex cereal might be a little erratic in its consistency, but it is still pretty wonderful. When in milk, it is consistent-enough to be well worth recommending; it is one I have added to my regular rotation!

For other cereals, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Fiber One Honey Clusters
Maple Brown Sugar Frosted Mini-Wheats
Multigrain Peanut Butter Cheerios

7/10

For other food reviews, please visit my Food 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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Only For Nutrition When Stuck On A Desert Island . . . Fiber One Chocolate Peanut Butter Meal Bars!

The Good: Very healthy
The Bad: Absolutely terrible taste, Expensive, Does not deliver the promised flavors
The Basics: Fiber One Chocolate Peanut Butter Meal Bar are an insult to the Fiber One name and not worth trying!


I am frequently fascinated by licensing. When a company sells its good name to another for a product, I become intrigued, largely because the companies that rent out their name seem to have so much more to lose than the company that uses it. I am always perplexed when the product names get associated with unlike products or products that have dramatically-different quality levels. As a fan of General Mills’s Fiber One cereal (reviewed here!), I’ve been surprised how General Mills has licensed out the name. The name Fiber One has been licensed to a number of different snack and meal bars and I have tried to give them a fair shake because I do like Fiber One. The latest experience I had was with General Mills’s own Fiber One Chocolate Peanut Butter Meal Bars . . .

. . . and they were horrible. In fact, why General Mills would associate something that taste nothing like its namesake baffles me, but why they would make something that tastes so bad and try to associate it with something good, just seems sketchy.

Basics

Fiber One is perhaps best known as the breakfast cereal that is reminiscent of fish food. Fiber One meal bars are part of General Mills’ expansion into snack foods. Their Meal Bars come in several flavors and I chose the Chocolate Peanut Butter Meal Bar because they were being clearance and I love chocolate, like peanut butter and enjoy the combination. Sadly, neither flavor was well-represented in these bars.

Each Chocolate Peanut Butter Meal Bar is in a 1.59 oz. bar that is foil-wrapped. Each bar represents a single serving and the Meal Bars are each 1 3/8” wide by 5/8” thick by 5” long Meal Bar that is unsurprisingly breakable, though it cannot be easily damaged by compression. A box of Chocolate Peanut Butter Meal Bar contains only five bars. Each bar looks like a granola bar with a bottom of chocolate that fuses the meal bar into a cohesive food product.

Ease Of Preparation

Eating Fiber One Chocolate Peanut Butter Meal Bars is simple. After removing the foil wrapper, simply pull out the bar and stick it in your mouth. There is no particularly complicated equation to eating this snack; it is an entirely ready-to-eat food!

Taste

Unwrapping the Chocolate Peanut Butter Meal Bar, one discovers these are not a very aromatic food at all. Instead, even the smell of chocolate only wafts up from the bars when they are flipped over and one puts their nose near them! The granola portion has no inherent scent.

In the mouth, the Fiber One Chewy Chocolate Peanut Butter Meal Bar is mealy and tastes like the aftertaste of nuts. These bars do not taste anything like Fiber One cereal, peanut butter or chocolate. My wife immediately likened it to a dog treat and, sadly, I cannot come up with a better description, other than slightly sweetened cardboard. The most disappointing aspect of these bars might well be that the “chocolate” tastes nothing like chocolate. The result is a dry, mostly flavorless bar that is not positively flavorful in any way.

The Chocolate Peanut Butter Meal Bars leave a very dry taste in the mouth for a good ten minutes after they are consumed. Even strong coffee had a tough time beating back this aftertaste!

Nutrition

Fiber One Meal Bars are intended to replace full meals and they are filling-enough to do that. These 1.59 oz. Meal Bars represent a single serving and they are fairly healthy. Made primarily of Roasted Peanuts, Soy Protein and Chicory root extract, the Chocolate Peanut Butter Meal Bars are loaded with nutrients, but do not contain any real chocolate. This is a mostly-natural food product and these Meal Bar include a dietary disclaimer that this flavor contains nuts (duh!), soy and milk, so they are not Vegan-compliant.

Fiber One's Chocolate Peanut Butter Meal Bars have 190 calories, 80 of which are from fat. A full serving represents 14% of one's RDA of saturated fat and these are cholesterol free. Unsurprisingly, they have a decent amount of sodium with 180 mg per serving (7% RDA) and there are 10 grams of protein to be had by eating a full bar. These are a significant source of thirteen vitamins and minerals, as well as possessing 15% of the RDA of Phosphorus.

Storage/Cleanup

As a healthy snack, Fiber One Chocolate Peanut Butter Meal Bar remain fresh so long as they are kept in their wrappers. As long as the bars are not heated up, they remain fresh and the only real clean-up for them comes from wiping up crumbs. Consult a fabric guide if the “chocolate” melts onto your clothes.

Overall

If I were stuck on a desert island, I would instantly see the appeal of eating Fiber One Chocolate Peanut Butter Meal Bars to keep me alive; but after trying them, I think it would be a fair toss-up between continuing to eat them or trying my luck with eating the sand for sustenance. Were it not for the powerful amounts of nutrition to be had from these, they would be a zero rating!

For other reviews of healthy food, please check out:
Slim-Fast 3-2-1 Double-Dutch Chocolate Bars
Truvia sugar substitute
Carb Conscious Supreme Protein Peanut Butter & Jelly Protein Bar

2/10

For other food and drink reviews, please check out my Food And Drink Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Delightful, Healthy . . . Fiber One Honey Clusters Cereal Is A Rare Cereal That Is Better Dry!

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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Intriguing, But Not Perfect: Multigrain Cheerios Peanut Butter Cereal Is Worth Trying!

The Good: Nutritious, Affordable, Nice sweet taste.
The Bad: With milk, it is not flavorful enough
The Basics: General Mills Peanut Butter Cheerios cereal is good, but might be one of the best examples of a cereal that is better before it is added to milk!


Lately, my local grocery store has been putting all sorts of cereals on sale and I thought that was a great time to start picking up breakfast cereal again and reviewing them! My first of the new cereal reviews is Multigrain Cheerios Peanut Butter flavor. And it’s good, but it does not truly hold its own against skim milk, which makes it a tougher sell to someone like me, who loves full, robust, flavors.

Basics

General Mills Peanut Butter 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, oats or some blend of rice, sorghum, and barley. The corn Cheerios in this mix are bright yellow, the oat Cheerios are dull brown, the other Cheerios are a lighter brown, much like regular Cheerios. Each Cheerios ring is approximately 1/2” in diameter and about 1/8” tall.

The standard box of Peanut Butter Cheerios cereal is 11.3 oz. That represents approximately eleven servings and that seems to be accurate given my experience so far. This cereal is comprised of just the cereal rings themselves, with nothing else in them. All three types of Cheerios seem to be mixed in with equal frequency.

Ease Of Preparation

Peanut Butter 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 Peanut Butter 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 Peanut Butter 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

Peanut Butter Cheerios smells strongly of peanut butter. In fact, anyone who loves peanut butter will be enticed by the aroma from this cereal, which is nice.

As for taste, dry Peanut Butter Cheerios cereal is dominated by the dry flavor of peanuts and that flavor quickly dissipates. The flavor of peanuts is replaced by the grainy, but sweet, flavor of the multigrain Cheerios. The aftertaste from the dry Multigrain Peanut Butter Cheerios is exactly what one expects from peanut butter. The flavor is nutty with a hint of something oily. That secondary flavor is the embodiment of peanut butter flavor.

Drenched in milk, the Peanut Butter Cheerios lose most of their flavor. They are consistently sweet, but the peanut butter flavor that these Cheerios possess when dry seems to wash off into the milk. The milk has a nutty taste, even when the Cheerios take on a generically sweet, overly grainy flavor. There is no strong aftertaste to the cereal after it has been placed in milk.

Nutrition

General Mills Peanut Butter Cheerios cereal is fairly nutritious on its own and with skim milk! Made primarily of whole grain corn, sugar, and peanut butter. Most of the ingredients, before the added vitamins and minerals, are easily identifiable in the Peanut Butter Cheerios. 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 Peanut Butter Cheerios cereal is 28 grams, 3/4 cups. In that serving, there are 110 calories, with 15 calories coming from fat. There are no saturated or trans fats in this cereal, nor is there any cholesterol. With 130 mg of sodium and 2 grams of dietary fiber, this is not a bad dietary choice for those striving to improve heart health. With two grams of protein and 85mg potassium, Peanut Butter Cheerios 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, most notably 50% of the RDA of Folic Acid!

Storage/Cleanup

Peanut Butter 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 Peanut Butter Cheerios cereal I purchased two weeks ago had an expiration date of February 17, 2015. 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 Peanut Butter 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 does not discolor the milk added to it, but even though one should drink that up to get all the vitamins and minerals General Mills added to the cereal, they do not risk staining their clothes from potential spills.

Overall

Peanut Butter Cheerios cereal is healthy, but it is not a powerful-enough peanut butter flavor to make it a must-buy. Even so, it is worth trying, even if just for the novelty!

For other flavors of Cheerios, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Cinnamon Burst Cheerios
Dulce De Leche Cheerios
Chocolate Cheerios

6/10

For other food reviews, please visit my Food 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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A Flavorful Alternative To Fiber One, Fiber One Honey Squares Is Fun!

The Good: Nutritious, Tastes good
The Bad: Comparatively pricy by volume.
The Basics: General Mills Fiber One Honey Squares cereal is a pleasant variation on the original Fiber One formula for both healthy and flavorful breakfast dining!


As the only person I know who entirely loves Fiber One cereal (reviewed here!), I was pleasantly surprised to discover General Mills has expanded their line of Fiber One cereals. Sadly, the only way I seem to have found that out was by finding a box of it on clearance! The expanded Fiber One line cereal I have found and been enjoying is Fiber One Honey Squares! It’s a nice twist on the standard version of the cereal and one well worth trying!

At $5.50 a box (locally), Fiber One Honey Squares is a little pricier for the 11.75 oz box than some other cereals, but that might be the only serious detraction for it.

Basics

General Mills Fiber One Honey Squares cereal is a very basic cereal. The slightly curved squares are 9/16” long by 1/2” wide. They come in yellow (corn) and brown (wheat) squares and my box seemed to have more of the corn squares than the wheat (about 2/3 corn squares).

The standard box of Fiber One Honey Squares cereal is 11.75 oz. That represents approximately eleven servings and I got exactly ten ¾ cup servings out of my box. This cereal is comprised of just the cereal squares themselves, with nothing else in them.

Ease Of Preparation

Fiber One Honey Squares 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 Squares 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 Fiber One Honey Squares, 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 Honey Squares, it gets nicely flavored.

Taste

Fiber One Honey Squares smell entirely like honey and corn. The scent of corn is very mild compared to the overwhelming and impressive aroma of honey.

As for taste, dry Fiber One Honey Squares cereal is exceptionally sweet. The honey flavor is strong and distinct; it overwhelms the grain and corn flavors of the cereal. In fact, this is one of the least dry tasting flavors of a healthy cereal as a result of the sweet honey coating.

When milk is added, Fiber One Honey Squares are sweet, but a little drier on their own. The grainy flavor of the corn and wheat comes out, while the milk quickly takes the sweet honey and uses it as a medium for that flavor. Oddly, there is almost no aftertaste to the grains and bite after bite, the cereal is sweet and dry, with a good combination of grain and honey to be more satisfying in some ways than traditional Fiber One cereal. It does not leave an aftertaste in the mouth when one is done consuming it.

Nutrition

General Mills Fiber One Honey Squares cereal is fairly nutritious on its own and with skim milk! Made primarily of whole grain corn, modified wheat starch, and corn bran, the Fiber One Honey Squares 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 Squares cereal is 30 grams, 3/4 cup. In that serving, there are 80 calories, with 5 calories coming from fat. There are no saturated or trans fats in this cereal, nor is there any cholesterol. With 140 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 gram of protein and 70 mg potassium, Fiber One Honey Squares 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 nine vitamins and minerals!

Storage/Cleanup

Fiber One Honey Squares 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 Squares cereal I purchased in March, 2013, had an expiration date of September 13, 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 Fiber One Honey Squares 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 Squares cereal is healthy and tastes wonderful, easily justifying the expense of the cereal!

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

8/10

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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A Clearance Rack Gem: Get The Fiber One Chocolate Mocha Chewy Bars Are Worth Hunting Down!

The Good: Delicious, Very healthy, Comparatively inexpensive
The Bad: I found myself wishing there were more in the box
The Basics: Fiber One Chocolate Mocha Chewy Bar are a good healthy treat that tastes sweet and chocolatey!


Sometimes, I am thrilled to discover something on the clearance rack that is suddenly a great value and that, in enjoying it, I find myself miffed at how it might have ever arrives on the clearance rack. I am a big fan of Fiber One (the cereal is reviewed here!) and when I saw the Fiber One Chocolate Mocha Chewy Bars on the clearance rack locally, I thought I had stumbled upon something special that seemed tailor-made for me.

Fortunately, these bars lives up to my expectations and my sincere hope is that they are only being clearance locally; this seems a worthwhile snack product for Fiber One to continue making!

Basics

Fiber One is perhaps best known for making the breakfast cereal that is reminiscent of fish food. Fiber One is part of General Mills’ expansion into snack foods. Their Chewy Bars come in several flavors and I chose the Chocolate Mocha Chewy Bar because I love mocha and coffee flavorings and this seemed like a pretty healthy snack to bear that flavor.

Each Chocolate Mocha Chewy Bar is in a 1.4 oz. bar that is foil-wrapped. Each bar represents a single serving and the Chewy Bars are each 1 1/4” wide by 11/16” thick by 3 3/4” long Chewy Bar that is unsurprisingly breakable or squishable. A box of Chocolate Mocha Chewy Bar contains only five bars. Each bar looks like a granola bar with a brown icing swirl on the top side of it.

Ease Of Preparation

Eating Fiber One Chocolate Mocha Chewy Bars is simple. After removing the foil wrapper, simply pull out the bar and stick it in your mouth. There is no particularly complicated equation to eating this snack; it is an entirely ready-to-eat food!

Taste

Unwrapping the Chocolate Mocha Chewy Bar, I was pleasantly surprised by just how strong the mocha scent was. This is a chocolate/coffee smell that is very inviting to anyone who loves mocha.

Placing the Chewy Bar in my mouth, I was somewhat surprised by how this did not taste dry at all. Fiber One’s Chewy Chocolate Mocha Chewy Bar is soft, chewy and chocolatey. The bottom side is glazed and sweet, with a slightly more generic granola flavor to it. Flipping it over so the icing hits the tongue first envelops the tongue in pure, strong chocolate and mocha flavored goodness. The topside is the perfect embodiment of the chocolate and coffee flavor one expects from a mocha flavoring.

This treat, surprisingly, does not have a strong aftertaste!

Nutrition

Fiber One Chewy Bars are intended as a snack, but having a couple might fill you up in a pinch. These 1.4 oz. Chewy Bar represent a single serving and they are surprisingly healthy. Made primarily of Chicory root extract, Sweet chocolate chips with coffee, and whole grain oats, what surprised me was how there was nothing in these bars that was unpronouncable. This is a mostly-natural food product and these Chewy Bar were produced on equipment that may leave the bar with traces of peanuts, wheat, sunflower, and almonds. There is also a dietary disclaimer that this flavor contains soy and milk, so they are not Vegan-compliant.

Fiber One's Chocolate Mocha Chewy Bars have 140 calories, 40 of which are from fat. A full serving represents 9% of one's RDA of saturated fat and these are cholesterol free. Surprisingly, they are fairly low in sodium with only 95 mg per serving and there are 2 grama of protein to be had by eating a full bar. These are not a significant source of vitamins or minerals, though they do have 10% of one’s daily calcium and 2% of the RDA of Iron.

Storage/Cleanup

As a healthy snack, Fiber One Chocolate Mocha Chewy Bar remain fresh so long as they are kept in their wrappers. Our box had an expiration date of May 28, 2013, so these last for a while. As long as the bars are not heated up, they remain fresh and the only real clean-up for them comes from wiping up crumbs.

If the Chocolate Mocha bars get hot, though, the chocolate chips in them will melt and cleaning that up can be a little more tricky, especially from light fabrics. Consult a fabric guide if the chocolate melts onto your clothes.

Overall

Fiber One Chocolate Mocha Chewy Bars are inexplicably being clearance locally, given how delicious and nutritious they are!

For other reviews of healthy food, please check out:
Peeled Organics Apricot-a-lot
Special K Cheddar Cracker Chips
Ocean Spray Pomegranate Craisins

7.5/10

For other food and drink reviews, please check out my Food And Drink Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Cinnamon Burst? More Like Cinnamon Blah! Cinnamon Burst Cheerios Underwhelm!

The Good: Nutritious, Comparatively inexpensive.
The Bad: More bland than in any way noteworthy!
The Basics: General Mills Cinnamon Burst Cheerios cereal is bland. Shockingly bland; even for a Cheerios cereal.


Yesterday was a good day for me in the clearance section of the local grocery store. It seemed that yesterday was a big day for markdowns and that meant I got a lot of fun new things to review. Unfortunately, sometimes some of the things that get liquidated are marked down because they are intensely unpopular. I am betting that is the reason the Cinnamon Burst Cheerios were on the clearance rack.

Basics

General Mills Cinnamon Burst 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 or oats. The corn Cheerios in this mix are a dull yellow, the oat Cheerios are dull brown. Each Cheerios ring is approximately 1/2” in diameter and about 1/8” tall.

The standard box of Cinnamon Burst Cheerios cereal is 10 oz. That represents approximately nine servings and that seems to be accurate given my experience so far. This cereal is comprised of just the cereal rings themselves, with nothing else in them.

Ease Of Preparation

Cinnamon Burst 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 Cinnamon Burst Cheerios 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 Cinnamon Burst Cheerios, though, as the 1 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

Cinnamon Burst Cheerios smells lightly of cinnamon. This is a remarkably unimpressive, un-aromatic cinnamon cereal. In fact, after the milk is on it, the Cinnamon Burst Cheerios smells more like Honey Nut Cheerios than it does Cinnamon Toast Crunch!

As for taste, dry Cinnamon Burst Cheerios cereal is generically sweet and dry. The dry taste is what one might expect from a cinnamon-laced cereal, but it is hardly as flavorful as one might hope for from a cereal flavored like cinnamon. Again, the glaze flavor quickly fades from even slightly cinnamon to something more akin to Honey Nut Cheerios.

Covered in milk, the Cinnamon Burst Cheerios have the burst, but lose it very quickly! The flavor is sweet and cinnamon for about thirty seconds after the milk is added. After that, the Cinnamon Burst Cheerios are just dry. In fact, the sweetness gets lost almost immediately and one is left with generic, dry, dull Cheerios. These Cheerios have a strong, dry aftertaste that is utterly indistinct. I did discover that the dry aftertaste, after I was completely finished with eating the cereal, was one of dry, unsweetened cinnamon.

Nutrition

General Mills Cinnamon Burst Cheerios cereal is fairly nutritious on its own and with skim milk! Made primarily of whole grain corn, sugar, and corn bran, the Cinnamon Burst Cheerios ingredient list degenerates into a chemistry equation after “cinnamon,” but there’s not much to the ingredients list after that. 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 Cinnamon Burst Cheerios cereal is 32 grams, 1 cup. In that serving, there are 110 calories, with 15 calories coming from fat. There are no saturated or trans fats in this cereal, nor is there any cholesterol. With 125 mg of sodium and 5 grams of dietary fiber, this is not a bad dietary choice for those striving to improve heart health. With two grams of protein and 85mg potassium, Cinnamon Burst Cheerios 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 nine vitamins and minerals, most notably 50% of the RDAs of Folic Acid.

Storage/Cleanup

Cinnamon Burst Cheerios is a cereal, so as long as it is kept sealed in its box, it ought to remain fresh for quite some time. 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 Cinnamon Burst 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 does not even discolor 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

Cinnamon Burst Cheerios cereal might be healthy, but it is not enjoyable to eat. It is, in every way, unimpressive and disappointing to the palate.

For other cereals, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Dulce De Leche Cheerios
Honey Kix
Chocolate Cheerios

4/10

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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Healthy And Delightful, Nature Valley Granola Thins Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Crispy Squares Are A Wonderful Snack!

The Good: Tastes good, Healthy, Affordable
The Bad: Not at all filling
The Basics: The Nature Valley Granola Thins Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter crispy squares are a tasty treat for dieters!


My wife has started a new dieting kick and I’m discovering how very few foods there are that are low in carbs. On the days when she can have a few extra carbs and wants to share a snack with me, we pull out the Nature Valley Granola Thins Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter crispy squares. I like them because they taste good and are low in sodium, she likes them because they are one of the only snacks that she can eat that have chocolate!

Basics

Nature Valley Granola Thins Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter crispy squares, for those who are not familiar with them, are multigrain granola bar blocks. General Mills has marketed their Granola Thins line as an alternative to full granola bars. The Nature Valley Granola Thins Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter crispy squares are individually-wrapped granola and chocolate treats.

Nature Valley Granola Thins Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter crispy squares come individually wrapped in a box of ten. The standard size box that I have found is 6 oz. The Granola Thins are almost a square approximately 2 1/4" by 2" by up to 5/16" thick. While I usually rail against the environmental impact of such things, it is hard to imagine that the Nature Valley Granola Thins Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter crispy squares without their wrappings.

Ease Of Preparation

Nature Valley Granola Thins Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter crispy squares are simple to enjoy; all you need do it open the box and unwrap the crispy squares! There is no trick to eating Nature Valley Granola Thins Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter crispy squares; they are a snack that is ready to go from the box to the mouth.

Taste

Nature Valley Granola Thins Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter crispy squares smell entirely like peanut butter. The scent lacks even the hint of granola or chocolate.

On the tongue, Nature Valley Granola Thins Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter crispy squares are dominated by the flavor of chocolate on the side that is thinly coated in chocolate. The dark chocolate flavor is sufficiently dark and a treat to those who like dark chocolate, though that coating is thin and melts off in the mouth fairly quickly. The granola side is very dry and only lightly flavored of peanut butter. The peanut butter flavor is very subtle.

The Nature Valley Granola Thins Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter crispy squares have a very dry aftertaste that does not fade for quite some time.

Nutrition

Nature Valley Granola Thins Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter crispy squares are actually not as bad on the health scale as most salty snacks are. Given that the ingredients are led by whole grain oats, sugar, and vegetable oils, it might surprise salty snack eaters to learn how generally good these granola snacks are are. These have a shelf life of at least half a year, though the box we bought last month would have expired on November 26, 2012, had I not eaten it before that!

Each .6 ounce (17 gram) serving of Nature Valley Granola Thins Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter crispy squares has 80 calories, thirty-five of which come from fat. There is less than a gram of dietary fiber. While there are 4 grams of fat and a gram of protein, there is a disturbing 65 mg of sodium, which represents 3% of one's RDA of sodium. There are a smattering of vitamins and minerals, but nothing significant and 11 grams of carbohydrates. There is a dietary note that the Nature Valley Granola Thins Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter crispy squares includes peanut, soy, egg, milk, and several types of nut ingredients, which prevents them from being Vegan compliant or Gluten-free.

Storage/Clean-up

Kept in their bag, Nature Valley Granola Thins Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter crispy squares will remain fresh for a while and as long as the wrappers are sealed, one suspects they will last indefinitely before getting stale. I've never had to deal with issues of freshness for my Nature Valley Granola Thins Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter crispy squares.

Cleanup is simple as well. Nature Valley Granola Thins Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter crispy squares are a dry food and thus leave no mess behind. Unless the chocolate melts on one’s fingers, they do not leave any mess. If they do, simply wash your hands, throw out the wrapper and cleanup is done!

Overall

Nature Valley Granola Thins Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter crispy squares are a healthy snack that one wishes were a bit larger and more filling with the same nutrition, but are otherwise decent for those who are minding any number of dietary aspects.

For other snack foods, check out my reviews of:
Orville Redenbacher's Butter Gourmet Popcorn
Cheez-It Cheddar Jack Snack Crackers
Planters Flavor Grove Jalapeno Pistachios

7/10

For other food and drink reviews, please click here to visit my index page!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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