Not that Special K (Kellogg's Special K Red Berries)

Member Name: caz-3124

Product:	Kellogg's Special K Red Berries
Date:	17/04/09 (66 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice with cold milk

Disadvantages: Berries too sharp

Apparently Special K has been around for fifty years. I had always thought they were a new product borne in the early 2000s out of the new interest in healthy eating but apparently they've been around for a long long time. In fact there are now ten different varieties of this cereal which shows how successful it is as a brand. It's certainly one of the first names that would come to my mind were someone to ask me to name a healthy cereal. The idea with this cereal is that people can use it as an aide to weight loss by eating a bowl of this cereal for breakfast and lunch and then having a normal meal at dinner time for two weeks. This is supposed to make you slimmer but by how much is unclear so it is a bit of a vague promise. The one I have now is the Red Berries version.

The box is white with that huge red K symbol on the front so it's very recognisable even from afar. On the bottom of the box is a picture of someone in a red bikini which is what they think they'll persuade us we will look like having eaten this for a few weeks. Yeah right. A 30g serving of this contains 112 calories and 0.5g fat. Considering this is meant to be a particularly healthy cereal I can't see any big difference between this and many of the others I eat. On the back of the pack there is a lot of information on their two week challenge including details of the website where you can set up a meal plan and find out about healthy eating.

The cereal itself is a mix of rice and wheat flakes with dried fruit in it. The flakes themselves are pale brown, very crunchy and though they are a bit bland on their own they taste lovely with cold milk. There are three types of berry in here which are strawberry, cherry and raspberry. They are quite generous with the fruit pieces and there are quite a few scattered throughout the box. The berries always look a bit funny to me as if they were made of polystyrene or something. As with dried fruit generally, though there is some resemblance towards the fruit they used to be, the taste of the fruit is generally overwhelmed by the tangy sharpness of it and sometimes the cherries can even taste a bit bitter.

I think this box was £2 at Sainsburys but you can get Special K in pretty much any supermarket thought they don't always stock all the varieties. If this was reduced I may buy this again but otherwise perhaps not. There is one variety that I do like but is very hard to find and all the rest just have not seemed that special to me. I think you pay a bit extra for all the weight loss hype that goes with it. That aside it's just a very everyday cereal and though this berry one was okay I just found the berries too zingy for my personal liking.

Summary: All right but didn't blow me away