New Product Review:

Wheaties Fuel

Reviewed by Mr Breakfast on 1/11/2010

Public Service Announcement: Wheaties Fuel is a great tasting cereal.

This is an important message because you don't really get a sense of what this cereal is like from the box or from commercials. The story of Wheaties Fuel is that it was created by 5 world-class athletes and 1 esteemed sports nutritionist as "the first-ever cereal designed specifically to help fuel wins". It's a nice story (more here). General Mills starting telling it months before the cereal was officially created. But one does not eat stories.

Today:

As I sat down to breakfast, Football great Peyton Manning stared at me from the strangely futuristic box, his steely eyes piercing the shadows of a black background. He looked serious - maybe even angry. This was a cereal with attitude. What does edgy taste like?

On the side of the box, Mr. Manning was holding a bowl of the cereal in a shadowy, half-body shot. The lighting distorted his face. I was reminded of the 1932 film Freaks - a mental image made more "freaky" as I recalled other cereal characters like Sugar Bear and Papa Smurf. In this pose, Peyton Manning seemed to be thinking, "Eat this cereal or I'll make you eat it." Attitude. Edgy.

I took a bite. This was not a dark and serious flavor. This was more than fancy packaging, marketing hype and image. This cereal was delicious. Despite the darkness of the box, Wheaties Fuel was fun. I pushed the humorless quarterback out of view.

Wheaties Fuel is one of the best tasting cinnamon cereals introduced in recent years. There's nothing subtle about the flavor. It's Cinnamon with a capital "C". I was really surprised how sweet this cereal was. I found it tasted sweeter than Cinnamon Toast Crunch and a number of kids cereals. That sweet surprise may not seem so sweet when you consider that Fuel has 10 grams more sugar per serving than regular Wheaties and 4 grams more sugar per serving than Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Set aside for a moment that Fuel might not be as nutritionally perfect as its marketing implies. This cereal has a great texture with an interesting crunch. Fuel is comprised of traditional Wheaties-type flakes and crispy rice pieces. The two pieces work great together and both retain a significant crunch in milk. I was reminded of Optimum cereals from Nature's Path, usually very good cereals, but their multi-textured pieces always hinted to your mouth that you'd chosen a healthier cereal. Fuel offers the same multifaceted texture, but never feels like a healthy cereal. That may also be because Fuel isn't quite as healthy as its marketing implies.

While I was disappointed by the high sugar content of Fuel and a less-than-stellar showing in dietary fiber (5 grams), this cereal does have some nutritional high-points. It offers 100% daily value of 5 B-vitamins and 0 grams trans and saturated fat. The first ingredient listed on the side panel is whole grain wheat. Unfortunately, sugar is third.

One 3/4 cup serving did fill me up until the lunch and I may have noticed a slight energy boost from the B-vitamins.

I'm giving this cereal a perfect score for flavor and texture. But I have to take at least one golden egg away for the deceptive sugar content. Overall, I recommend trying Wheaties Fuel. I suspect if General Mills were to repackage this as a cereal with flavor and substance instead of just attitude, Wheaties Fuel could be around for a couple years.




The price we paid: $3.99