After taking the Fiber One challenge I have come to two conclusions.
- If you’re advertising campaign is built around saying your product does not taste likes cardboard, chances are it tastes like cardboard.
- I need to go buy some Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Right. Now.
I guess I should have seen this coming. Last summer I tried out Kashi’s Honey Sunshine Cereal with the hope that it would prove an acceptable “adult cereal” substitute for Cap’n Crunch, only to find that the healthier version of my childhood favorite yielded muted sweetness and a dull, prone-to-sogginess texture that made grubbing a serious chore. That, as Alton Brown says, is not good eats.
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Looks Good Enough...
So I guess I should have expected less from Fiber One’s “healthier” take on another classic cereal. After all, the shiny squares of sugar and wheat on the box of Fiber One Caramel Delight looked like the same squares of Cinnamon Toast Crunch which delighted my childhood taste buds, and at $2.50 a box at Target the deal was too good to pass up.
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Cardboard? No. Delicious? About that...
Well, maybe I should have passed it up. The highly anticipated first bowl was a dud. The squares are a good deal smaller than the squares in Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and have a wheaty taste that seems at odds with the sweetness. I didn’t get the initial cinnamon-sugar burst of sweetness that I get with Cinnamon Toast Crunch, while the Caramel flavor, while present, is kind of aloof and doesn’t fit in with what I’d describe as a lingering “bran” flavor. There are no undertones of cinnamon whatsoever, and the lack of spice flavor reduces the caramel flavor the a dull and artificial nature.
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As for the end milk? It’s OK, but like any self-respecting 21-year old, I prefer to eat my cereal right out of the box, and when it comes to snackage this philosophy doesn’t lend well to Fiber One’s Caramel Delight. Sure, it looks kinda like Cinnamon Toast Crunch (right on down to the sugary coating left on your fingers) but this stuff is an impostor. It’s not nearly as airy as Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and the denser nature of the cereal — coupled with the overpowering bran flavor and fake caramel coating — leave it dramatically short of my expectations. Darn you Iateapie.net and your health-infused reviews! I feel jilted and jaded now!
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To be fair, Fiber One does produce some awesome products. I’ll gladly risk a day full of farting and awkward questions of “why are you eating THAT” from my friends just to enjoy the company’s Oats and Chocolate granola candy bar, while I count another Fiber One cereal (Honey Clusters) among my Top 10 cereal picks. That being said, Fiber One Caramel Delight does an injustice to the company’s marketing slogan, and should be avoided for anyone who grew up in the 1980s or 1990s and is looking to recapture the sugar-infused glory and decidedly awesome end-milk results of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. My suggestion for those of you who want to get your fiber while still enjoying the taste of the classic kids cereal? Just add some regular Fiber One to your morning (or late-night) bowl of whatever sugary cereal does your pleasure. Now that is what I call healthy balance!
