New Product Review:

All-Bran Yogurt Bites

Reviewed by Mr Breakfast on 3/10/2006

This cereal reminds me of jogging in an interesting neighborhood.

As you put on your sneakers, jogging is about the last thing you want to do. But as you hit the pavement, you're like, "This isn't that bad." As your run progresses, you start to feel increasingly proud of what you're doing. You even start to have fun. You're running through a neighborhood with a lot of interesting things to see. Look! There's a shirtless man getting his mail. He's so chubby! For a minute, you just take in the scenery and forget that you're doing something healthy.

This morning as I poured the new All-Bran cereal in my bowl, I couldn't help but stare longingly at the other cereal boxes in my office. Words like "chocolate" and "berry" suddenly seemed to be larger and almost three-dimensional. By contrast, the bran flakes in my bowl seemed boring and... ugghhh... healthy.

As I dipped my spoon into the cereal, I took solace that I was about to get 40% of my daily fiber requirement... no mater how lame the taste might be.

The flavor and feeling of the flakes are familiar. They're health food flakes and they taste like it. Personally, I like the flavor - if only as an occasional change from sweeter cereals. But they're old-school. You can imagine the Kellogg brothers in 1890 tasting the same flavor as they experimented with healthy cereal flakes.

The spoonful of All-Bran Yogurt Bites that appears on the cereal box is deceptive. The picture is loaded with tiny yogurt-coated oat clusters. In truth, you get about one or two of the clusters in each spoonful. That's better that a lot of other cereals promising something new and flavorful in each bite.

The good news is that these little clusters add pizzazz to the fiber-rich cereal. Taken alone, the clusters taste like tiny oatmeal cookies. There's hardly enough clusters to completely change the personality of the cereal. But there are enough to make the cereal slightly more exciting.

I tend to add a teaspoon of sugar to the original All-Bran cereal. I didn't feel the need to do that with this new cereal.

So like a jog through an interesting neighborhood, I finished my bowl of All-Bran Yogurt Bites. I had a good time and, at one point, I forgot I was eating healthy. Later this afternoon, I look forward to being more regular.

I suggest that you jog down to your local grocery store and pick up a box.

The price we paid: $2.99