Snack Attack. (Weetabix Alpen Light Chocolate & Orange)

Member Name: Emmald

Product:	Weetabix Alpen Light Chocolate & Orange
Date:	27/10/09 (74 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good for in between meals.

Disadvantages: None really.

Cereal bars can come in very handy if you are looking for a low calorie snack that is going to fill that gap until you enjoy your next meal. But cereal bars can vary greatly, some are moist, tempting and very moreish and others can be dry as a stick, very unappetising and leave you feeling extremely disappointed.
Weetabix the company produce the ever popular wheat biscuit that we all know and love, crunchy bran flakes, the comparative new and far less exciting ( in my opinion ) Oatibix and a cereal that my nephew loves, Ready Brek.
But naively I never realised that the Alpen cereal bars were made by the Weetabix company.

There are four flavours in the Alpen light range which include Summer Fruits, Chocolate and fudge, Apple and Sultana and Chocolate and Orange.
I bought a pack of five Chocolate and Orange Alpen cereal bars for £1, this was exceptionally good value.

Inside of the slimline box there are five individually wrapped Alpen cereal bars, I will stick my neck out and tell you that the bars are not by any means large but we have to take into account that each bar contains no more than 70 calories.
The Alpen cereal bars contain a mixture of wheat flakes, oat flakes and rice. These high fibre grains are then mixed along with a whole host of other ingredients to form the finished cereal bar.
I am not going to give you a blow by blow account of the list of ingredients suffice to say that the Alpen cereal bars do contain some preservatives, a pre biotic, fruit fibres, juices and purées, cocoa and chocolate.
If you need to eat food that is Kosher or Vegan then these are not on the menu but if you are a straightforward vegetarian then they are suitable.
The Alpen cereal bars contain gluten, lactose and milk, they may well contain nuts and they do contain soya.

Of course it can be boring examining the list of ingredients but for many it is an essential part of their everyday life.
Although the Alpen bars contain apple and pineapple in some form or another the predominant fruit is definitely the orange. I think that chocolate and orange are a delicious combination and one that works well for Alpen. The mixture of wheat, oats and rice is coarse and chunky but surprisingly that does not make the cereal bat to dry to fully enjoy.
The bar is very lightly `drizzled` with chocolate, if you blink you could in fact miss it ! I feel that the drizzled chocolate is there to lull us into a false sense of security, we can see it but we cannot taste it - but it means that we have had some chocolate !
Weetabix have obviously thought about their recipe and they have made sure that the cereal snack affords nourishment not punishment, the cereal bar is moist enough so that you remain interested when you are eating it.
I think that in the main the chocolate that you seem to taste is coming from within the cereal bar, maybe in the form of cocoa and the sharp yet very pleasant `orangey` flavour is one that you can smell as soon as you unwrap the bar and it is the last thing that you taste as you finish the cereal bar.
The coarse cereal mixture does tend to stick in between your teeth so you may end up finding oat flakes a few hours later.

I am not even going to try to say that an Alpen light cereal bar can take the place of a bar of chocolate, in short it does not! But the Alpen bars are very edible and acceptable, they can bridge that gap, they are affordable and they do leave you feeling as though you have had a bite to eat.

Five Alpen bars for 99p - I will buy them again, if only to use for an in between meals snack.

Summary: Bridge that gap....