5 New Breakfast Cereals from Kellogg
Of course, the theory is that myself and the family always have a nutritionally sound, sugar-free and fibre-filled breakfast seven days a week.
You know, porridge made with salt, green smoothies and a couple of boiled eggs on wholegrain toast – all organic naturally.
My ideal breakfast – at a cafe!
But the gap between theory and practice is wide.
Yes, I have found a teenager making a Nutella sandwich on white bread for brekkie, washed down with Coke.
Low moments in motherhood!
And most days we are all somewhere in between. Except my husband actually. He gets up super early and usually has muesli and yoghurt, or scrambled eggs on toast.
How marvellous – but if only he’d wash his own scrambled egg pans.
Anyway, we often do have the berry smoothies and the banana and cinnamon smoothies, but we also eat packaged cereal. The children love it and they often twist my arm to buy a packet whilst out shopping.
Their fave is also the most popular cereal in Australia, Neutral Grain, as the twins insist it’s called.
Kellogg’s recently picked up on my breakfast obsession – and my love of breakfasts out – and invited me to a PR event where their brand new cereals were being launched.
They threw a great breakfast party, and had their heads of nutrition, innovation and product development along to talk to us. These three are smart women, who explain how they balance giving the customer what they want with giving them what’s healthy… and what’s achievable.
Interestingly, they said it’s far harder to update an older product like Special K which was recently relaunched. Making a new cereal sounds like a great job, lots of taste testing… but the problems come trying to make cereal on an industrial scale. It’s tough.
Kellogg was founded by a doctor who saw his patients suffering from gut problems due to a low wholegrain diet. He and his brother accidentally invented corn flakes, and the rest is history.
Why grains are good
Don’t get me started on fad diets and the downsides of cutting out whole food groups. How can people reject whole grains??!! I’m Scots-born and bred and refuse to live life without porridge. Whole English armies were destroyed on porridge alone!
Anyway, wholegrains are good because they provide energy with vitamins, minerals and excellent fibre. So there.
The new cereals
But let me (finally) get to the point. Some new cereals were tested and tasted. Here they are in order of my most faves to least faves:
Kellogg’s® Breakfast Toppers – Dark Choc & Almond, Pink Lady Apple and Sweet Dukkah
These are not aimed at families so much as young people heading off to work with breakfast in their bag. These are half serves of granola to pour over yoghurt.
My Mr9 loved these and made his own invention of yoghurt, smoothie and Pink Lady Apple Breakfast Topper… and I was thrilled to see him eat all that.
The Sweet Dukkah flavour is totally different to anything we had tasted before and caused a sensation. But the Dark Choc and Almond is my fave.
Nutri Grain Edge Oat Clusters – Cocoa, Caramelised Peanuts & Almonds, Malt, Peanuts and Cashews, Tropical Blend and Caramelised Peanuts.
‘That’s not Neutral Grain,’ said the kids, and it isn’t. It’s granola really, with peanuts. It’s quite sweet and very crunchy.
My older boys liked this a lot, but my husband said ‘lose the peanuts, they dominate the flavour.’ This is aimed at older teenagers and young adults rather than younger children.
Kellogg’s Disney Frozen Cereal
This is a multigrain cereal with a distinct vanilla flavour. It has a 4 star rating but the kids will never guess that.
My daughter fell upon it, of course and it was scoffed within seconds. Theoretically, this gaudy offering isn’t my cup of tea… but I suspect Ms9 might be asking for it in the school holidays.
Special K® Whole Grain Clusters – Flaked Almonds, Cranberries & Pepitas and Flame Raisin and Red Apple
These are good. I like that it says ‘with protein’ though really, it’s not a huge amount of protein.
I tend to eat cereal, even muesli with Chobani yoghurt so as to get more protein to feel fuller for longer.
We were given this cereal in little tubs – aimed at millenials who eat breakfast at their desk. I am disapproving in theory of these single serves, terribly over-packaged and wasteful and the opposite of a brown bag of muesli from the wholefood store chucked in a little Thermos flask.
My Teen18 loved this of course and disappeared off to school joyfully with the wee pots.
Not very environmentally friendly, but useful at times.
Look at this beautiful breakfast creation, made using the Breakfast Toppers by the excellent food blogger Phoodie.
In praise of All-Bran
Now, I have to say that, theoretically, my favourite Kellogg cereal is All-Bran, a friend to me for years. I like the All-Bran High Fibre Muesli too, but in fact often mix All-Bran and my own muesli.
In practice though, I do love the new Nutri-Grain Oat Clusters, too much… I keep nibbling them by the handful.
So where were we. Oh yes…. here’s to any breakfast and here’s to the theory that it’s the one meal you should eat even if you’re not hungry, and it’s better to eat something than nothing.
Although maybe not the white bread Nutella sandwich and Coke – boys!
And here’s to that most essential breakfast component – a strong coffee. Good morning!
Thanks Kellogg Australia for hosting an interesting and very beautiful brekkie for bloggers.
I’m giving away all these breakfast cereals over on my Facebook page later on this evening. Will put a link here when it’s live.