Tasty Cereals!

I was at Target the other day and had to make a mid-week grocery run, so I picked up a few things there. They have decent prices on a lot of my staples, like kashi cereals and morningstar farms products. I also enjoy their generic store brand, Archer Farms. I picked up a new kashi cereal called "Honey Sunshine," and an Archer Farms cereal called "Cinnamon start with protein." Generally we only buy kashi Golean, as it is chock full of protein and fiber and keeps you full until lunch, but I was getting fairly sick of this twiggy cereal though so I thought I'd branch out.

Both of these cereals are very tasty and make a great breakfast or snack. The Honey Sunshine has an appreciable nutrition content: 100 cal/1.5 g. fat/6 g. fiber/2 g. protein. I've been looking for an easy pre-workout snack and I think this would be great, with or without milk. It's best to avoid slow-digesting whole grain before a workout, but it's low enough in protein and fiber that I think it would be alright about an hour before the gym. The Cinnamon start cereal tastes exactly like cinnamon toast crunch, a beloved childhood favorite of mine. But unlike the sugar-loaded kids' cereal, this packs a nutritional punch with 190 cal/2 g. fat/4 g. fiber and an astounding 15 g. protein (not really sure where that is coming from).

The best thing about these cereals is the dessert I just concocted- sprinkling a little of each over a half cup of Dreyer's (Breyer's on the east coast) yogurt blends vanilla frozen yogurt. It tasted like a cinnamon filled fried ice cream and was a very filling evening snack for about 150 calories. MMMmmmm!

The quest for the perfect snack bar...

This is very much a detour from the regular content of my posts, but it does have to do with food so I will continue. I am always reading reviews of new snack products online and in magazines, searching for the perfect balance of nutrition, taste and satiating factor. I tend to eat one snack in the morning and one in the afternoon, and appreciate something convenient and fast. Here are reviews of a few snack bars I've tried recently-

Kashi- I love pretty much everything this company makes, and I feel safe buying it because it never contains much of the crap you find in everything else: sugar, high fructose corn syrup, artificial coloring and flavor etc. Their products taste like they are good for you because they are made with high quality ingredients (hence the slightly higher price than the average General Mills/Kraft products. I tried the TLC fruit and grain pumpkin pie bar and the TLC baked apple spice cereal bar. The pumpkin bar has a good crunch and a nice mixture of flavors and textures. I am a pumpkin fan so I enjoyed it, and it has 4 g. of protein and fiber, not bad for 120 calories.

The apple bar was softer and had a nice flavor but is a bit too sweet for my taste. Not bad at 3 g. fiber, 2 g. protein and 110 calories. However sweet this bar is it's got nothing on Fiber One's oats and apple streusel bar.

Fiber One- I should have known by looking at the ingredients, being that sugar appears 3 times in the list, in addition to HFCS and high maltose corn syrup (?). I would eat this as more of a candy bar than a healthy mid-morning snack. However, it somehow has 9 g. of fiber so it is filling. It could use about half the sugar and more protein (it has 2 g.). This bar has 130 calories.

I still enjoy my old standby, Nature Valley crunchy granola bars in oats and honey, cinnamon and peanut butter, but these have more calories, fat and sugar, and less fiber. They are pretty filling and good for a crunchy snack on a hike.

I am probably going to try the Kashi Golean bars next and I will report back.