Keeps me going without adding the calories (Tesco Light Choices Maple Cereal Bars)

Member Name: SusanLesley

Product:	Tesco Light Choices Maple Cereal Bars
Date:	14/06/09 (134 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Taste good, cheap to buy, low in sugar and calories

Disadvantages: A bit dry

I shall be working on the RNLI stall on Llandudno seafront on Sunday selling lifeboat souvenirs and as the stall is open from 8am until 6pm I needed some food and drink to take with me that wouldn't ruin my diet which is still going well if a little slowly.

When I was in Tesco's last week I looked at the cereal bars to choose a couple of packets of the ones which were relatively low in calories and sugar. I chose three different boxes so that I could take a mixture of flavours and they would last two or three weeks.

The ones that I chose were Alpen Light which I had tried before and knew that I liked, Tesco Special Flake Bars with Peach and Apricot and Tesco Light Choices Maple Cereal Bars.

As I was just sitting watching the TV I fancied something nice so I decided to try the maple cereal bars. I adore the taste of maple syrup so I was looking forward to this.

The price

The pack of 6 bars cost me £1.36 so that works out as just slightly less than 23p per bar.

The box

The box is as the category title suggests Tesco Light Choices as opposed to the box shown at the top of this review which is from the older Tesco Healthy Living range.

The information on the front tells us that the bars are 'rice and wheat cereal bars with maple syrup' and that they contain '30% less fat than Tesco cranberry cereal bars'. This doesn't really mean much to me as I have never tried the cranberry cereal bars!

The now familiar boxes showing the nutritional information expressed as a percentage of the recommended daily allowance appear at the bottom right hand corner of the box.

There is further information on the back of the box showing ingredients, allergy warnings and detailed nutritional information. I was able to use this information to check the sugar and calorie content before I made my decision to buy these.

The bar

The bars are all individually wrapped in foil with a simple Tesco Light Choices logo on the front with the words maple cereal bar.

I tore open the foil and the first thing I noticed was the lovely fragrance of maple syrup - I was going to enjoy this! The bar looked pretty much like any other cereal bar with lots of grains stuck together with what I assume is maple syrup.

The taste

Well I have to say that I was a little bit disappointed with the taste. The bar was slightly dry although the taste was nice enough. When I thought about it I suppose that if the calories and sugar content are low then I was never going to get that moist, chewy, sweet experience that I was naively expecting to get.

So once I had realised that the dryer taste was inevitable I realised that, for the calories, the bar did actually taste quite nice. I could certainly taste the maple syrup and that taste did remain in my mouth after I had finished eating the bar so I was able to savour it which was nice. The whole thing leaned more towards being a biscuit than a cake whilst remaining somewhere in between.

Nutritional Information per 22g bar

Calories 75
Protein 1g
Carbohydrates 15.5g
Of which sugars 4.2g
Fat 0.6g
Of which saturates 0.2g
Fibre 2.8g
Salt 0.1g

Conclusion

Although these bars are quite small they are tasty and remarkably filling for 22g and they helped to keep me going through a long day on the lifeboat stall.

The calorie count and sugar content are both nice and low so they suit my diet and my diabetes and whilst they aren't the best I have tasted I will certainly buy them again in the future.

Summary: A nice snack to kepp you going