January 27th: Kellogg's Fibre Plus Milk Chocolate

Kcal 111 Fat 3.5g Fat(sats) 1.5g Carbs 16.0g (per bar)

With only four days remaining in January I am really cutting it fine in my bid to find all of you January dieters a good option to satisfy your chocolate cravings. Having sampled some awful products from the likes of Unilever's Slim Fast and Boots' Shapers range I was beginning to feel that all my efforts were going to be in vain but then my hopes were lifted when I saw these new Kellogg's Fibre Plus bars in my local Sainsbury's. Indeed I first saw these bars of 'high fibre cereal with milk chocolate' announced in The Grocer last month - (See HERE). Being a fan of Kellogg's Fruit n' Fibre I needed no second invitation to give them a try.

At an RRP of £1.79 for four 28.0g bars, in comparison to other similar options these are a price premium; luckily I managed to bag these on an introductory offer of £1 which I thought was a far fairer price. Now whenever I think of Fibre cereals I often think of bland packaging and just ...well... brown coloured cereal - it hardly sets your imagination running wild does it! With that said Kellogg's did a pretty damn good job making these bars look well ... pretty flash! As you can see above the packaging has great stand out and the inner foil wrappers maintained each bar in great condition. I happen to think cereal bars are never the most exciting things ever but aesthetically these looked pretty sharp and I liked the drizzled effect of the chocolate on top which created a nice patterned design.

I ate these bars across a working work and substituted them in for my traditional mid-afternoon chocolaty snack. Given that I am reviewing these for dieters it is probably worth considering the nutritional information - 111 calories, 3.5g of fat and 20% of your daily fibre requirements ... not bad huh!? The first thing that struck me when opening one of the wrappers was the mild chocolate biscuit like smell that emanated from the bar - it hardly bowled me over but at least it was there! From the very first bit I noticed how dense these were in texture - they were very chewy in the mouth. In regards to flavours I have to say that the cereal constituents were quite bland with only the rolled oats bringing hints of wheat and flour to the party. In addition to these base flavours the syrup that acted as the bind brought a nice sweetness to the taste which was further compounded by the intermittent influences of milk chocolate. In regards to the actual milk chocolate involved it was actually surprisingly well portioned and had a say in the taste of each and every bite. Was it high quality milk chocolate!? ... of course not! Did it provide an adequate chocolate flavour hit!? ... Yeah for me it did!

Overall I think this is best I am going to be able to do for you dieters out there! These Kellogg's Fibre Plus Milk Chocolate bars were a way off being what I would deem as a high quality chocolate offering, yet at the same time they were damn good for what they were. They weren't the most flavoursome of things I have eaten but I was actually pleasantly surprised by how much of a say the chocolate had in the taste and I was equally impressed at how much they satisfied my hunger. Having tried some damn horrible dieting options recently I am very surprised that I feel in the position to actually go as far as recommending these. I am not sure people who are used to sugary cereals will have much love for them but personally I think the syrup and milk chocolate more than liven up the taste to suitable levels. Dieters this is the best I can do for you I am afraid - they aren't the perfect chocolate snack option but if you are getting desperate I suggest you try mini versions of the real McCoy (mini Snickers etc!). In my opinion nothing can replace the real thing, but these are at least worth a try.

7.8 out of 10