Kellogg's Nutri-Grain Bars (Cereal Bars in General)

Member Name: Ric!

Product:	Cereal Bars in General
Date:	01/04/02 (1701 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: High in calcium, iron and vitamins, Convenient, Good taste

Disadvantages: High in sugar, Bad for your teeth

Have you seen that advertisement on the television for Kellogg's Nutri-Grain bars? The one where gorgeous, succulent looking fresh fruit collide with grains of wheat, and lashings of milk? It's a well-made advert, but don't be fooled into thinking that the cereal bars themselves will live up to the images they use to tempt you into buying them.

Don't get me wrong - I DO actually like the Kellogg's Nutri-Grain BLUEBERRY bars, but they aren't mouth watering. They are available in several other flavours apart from blueberry; tangy orange, apple, cherry, chocolate and strawberry.

Cereal bars seem like a great idea. If you haven't got time to eat breakfast in the morning, you can grab one of these convenient bars and eat it on the way to work. After all, the adverts tell us all those impressive facts, which are plastered on the side of the box, too.

- made with wheat, whole-grain and fruit
- contains as much calcium as 1/4 pint of nutritious milk
- chocolate flavour bar is 90% fat free!

Cereal bars such as these received a rather bad television report several months ago, from one of the popular consumer programmes, because of the misleading promotion of these bars as being healthy. This followed a British Food Commission survey. (Read about it here: http://www.dentist.ie/cgi-bin/news/news_view.pl?ti tle=Cereal%20bars%20'full%20 of%20sugar' and http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/uk/newsid_161500 0/1615394.stm)

Let's take the Blueberry bars, for example:

Energy - 130 kcal
Protein - 1.5g
Carbohydrates - 26g
of which sugars - 12g
starch - 12g
Fat 3g
Fibre 1g


Look at the fat and sugar content. Doesn't seem too bad at first glance. But, when you consider that the bars weigh 37g, the values per 100g, (which equate to a percentage), show that they contain 8% fat and a whopping 31% sugar. What a great way to
start your day - to coat your teeth in loads of sugar.

Anyway, so long as you realise that these aren't the wonderful, healthy, breakfast option that you may have thought they were, I'll carry on.

The bars themselves consist of "a soft golden baked crust made with wheat and whole-grain oats with a blueberry filling". Or, in other words, a wheaty, cakey bit around the edge filled with a sweet and sickly jam-like filling. Warning: don't try and eat more than 2 in a row - as they really do become very sickly. I can't comment on any bars other than the blueberry ones, but I do actually think they taste quite nice (provided you just eat one only). They are soft, full of flavour and go very nicely with a cup of coffee. The bars are foiled wrapped for freshness.

You will also get 17% of your Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) of iron, and 25% of your RDA of Thiamine (Vit B1), Riboflavin (Vit B2), Niacin, Vit B6, Folic Acid, and Vit B12 from one Kellogg's Nutri-Grain bar.

They are available from all major supermarkets, for a price of £0.29 each, or for better value, a box of 8 will cost £1.65 - find them at www.sainsburystoyou.com or www.tesco.com.

In conclusion, these bars do provide you with a good supply of calcium, iron and several other vitamins, but they should be treated like eating a chocolate bar, and not like eating a healthy snack (in my opinion). Oh, and they taste alright, too!

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