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Product Review: General Mills Milk and Cereal Bars

Cereal Bars, Cheerios, Cocoa Puffs, General Mills

General Mills Milk and Cereal Bars are a great way to start off the morning. These bars combine the nutrition of a bowl of cereal with the Vitamin D and Calcium found in a glass of milk. You don’t have to sit down to the table and get a bowl, put in the cereal, and then pour in the milk, and spend fifteen minutes or more in the process. You can just grab a bar and head out the door.

Of course, I realize that eating on the run isn’t the ideal alternative to a healthy breakfast had at the breakfast table with one’s family. However, with today’s busy lifestyles, at least by eating the milk and cereal bars you don’t cut out the fulfillment of having the healthy breakfast. It’s just faster and perhaps on the go.

This is a nice alternative to the traditional breakfast of a bowl of cereal for more than one reason. I find myself that I always tend to let my milk spoil when I buy it. I just don’t use it fast enough to beat the expiration date. I also tend never to have time to wash dishes, and hate to continuously waste paper bowls and plastic spoons. Finally, my cereal finds a way of getting stale before I can finish a box. So, the milk and cereal bars are a way to avoid all of these problems!

Nutritional Value

The idea behind these milk and cereal bars is that you get the cereal, and in between, like in the middle of the sandwich, you get a “milk filling.” This provides the calcium and Vitamin D. Each one of the bars provides 25% of the daily requirement for Vitamin D and 25% of Calcium. Through the cereal part, you get between 15 and 35% each Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Iron, Riboflavin, Thiamin, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B6, Zinc, and Niacin. You get 15% of the daily phosphorus need and 50% of folic acid. These are all based on a 2000 calorie daily diet.

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Each bar has 3 grams of protein, 28 grams of carbohydrate, and 1 gram of dietary fiber. The bars have 14 grams of sugar, which I find acceptable, especially if you consider that one bottle of gatorade has 34 grams of sugar. I would probably like to see more dietary fiber in each bar.

Types of Cereal Bars

General Mills Milk and Cereal Bars come in a few different varieties. You can get a variety pack of Honey Nut Cheerios, Cocoa Puffs, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch, or just get a box of any of these three individually. I prefer the variety pack, because then you can have whatever flavor you feel like that morning.

The best of the three in my opinion is the Honey Nut Cheerios. These are just like Honey Nut Cheerios Cereal, except you also get the milk filling. Additionally, each bar has to be held together somehow. I find a hint of a caramel taste in the corn syrup which seems to comprise what holds them together. It makes the honey nut cheerios bars slightly sweeter than the other two varieties. Within the past year, General Mills has changed the makeup of the Honey Nut Cheerios bars, and they are sweeter than they were before. I liked the old flavor better, but these are still delicious!

As for the Cocoa Puffs, I enjoy the chocolatey taste! I find that I prefer this flavor whenever I get a craving for chocolate! Finally, the Cinnamon Toast Crunch provides a more bran-tasting cinnamon flavor. It has a more robust taste, so I use this flavor more to wake myself up in the morning.

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The bars come in a six pack with 2 of each of the three flavors included. This sells for about $2.50 at WalMart, and $3 elsewhere. This means each bar costs about 41 cents. That’s not bad, considering the taste and nutritional value, as well as the simplicity and ease of use! The normal appetite, especially a child’s, would find one bar to be adequate for breakfast. I must admit that I generally eat two a morning. Still, that’s less than a dollar for breakfast! Milk and cereal and bowls and spoons would have cost a lot more!

Overall, this is a great product. I recommend it to anyone on the go, or anyone wishing to have a simple breakfast option with nutritional content. The bars do have some added sugar, which could be a concern for parents. They also include peanut ingredients- so be careful if your child has a peanut allergy. Otherwise, enjoy them and eat them often!

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