Kellogg's 5 Grain Muesli Bars - Chocolate & a Blend of Nuts

I'm trying to wean myself off of Nakd Bars, Mr.1T has also become addicted to the Bakewell Tart flavour and its proving to be a rather expensive habit! 

Not that these were much cheaper thanks to Ocado and their ability to show only the new products in each category.

The 5 Grain Muesli bars are, you guessed it, made with 5 grains - wheat, oats, triticale (a hybrid of wheat and rye apparently), rye and barley. There are three flavours and surprise, surprise I chose the Chocolate & a Blend of Nuts flavour. 

Look:

It looks like condensed bird food with a few nuts and some chocolate chunks thrown on top for good measure. There's no point beating about the bush - it does! I could see the blend of nuts throughout the bar, the nuts used are peanuts, almonds and hazelnuts and there seemed a lot more peanuts than the others. 

Smell: 

Initially I thought "ooh that smells chocolatey!" but straight away I realised it's not chocolate like a chocolate bar chocolatey. It smells exactly the same as hot chocolate powder, to be specific Cadbury Highlights hot chocolate powder. The reason for this is probably because the chocolate chunks, strangely, are made using a fat reduced cocoa powder. So it literally was diet chocolate powder I could smell! 

Taste:

The unique selling point of the 5 Grain Muesli bars are that there are 5 grains used, obviously. But there wasn't too much of a difference from other similar cereal bars. It did have a more wholesome, healthy feel to it and it seemed denser and more filling than others but the flavours weren't very apparent. 

 I like my contrasting textures as always, and the nuts add a satisfying crunch through the sticky sweet honey and chewy grains, though the honey does somewhat hide the flavour of the grains, hazelnuts and almonds.Of the three nuts, the peanuts have by far the strongest flavour but it was obvious there was a mix - personally I'd have preferred the other two but I know I'm in a minority there!

The chocolate was fine, I don't remember anything too cheap or sickly tasting but I just could not get the idea of hot chocolate out of my head! I really think it tastes how eating hot chocolate would but that could well be my nostrils tricking my taste buds!

7/10 

Tesco Fruity Bars

I love Nakd. The normal bars, the crunch bars, the nibbles, the fruit & nut bits and the flavour infused raisins. I've even converted Mr.1T, who turns his nose up at anything remotely good for him, into a Nakd Bakewell Tart addict - he tried one at the start of last week and he's gone through 3 multipacks already! Let's be honest though, they're expensive. I will pay more for them as they're superior to other 'cereal' bars - a lot more filling, most are one of your 5 a day and they contain only natural ingredients. It was about time a supermarket made a rip off version though! 

Banana Bliss 

My old faithful Nakd Banana Bread, is thankfully one of the two flavours Tesco have so kindly imitated. I have high standards though so this had a lot to live up to. 

Going into it, from a health food point of view, it's a mixed bag. Ok if you're on a diet they have less calories, but they are smaller, however they have somehow managed to squeeze 4g more protein into 4g less product - so they should be roughly as filling. 

Although they are only 4g lighter they seem a lot smaller. Otherwise they look pretty much the same, with the exception of white specks dotted about in the Tesco bar. 

For a product that didn't have much of a banana smell it sure did taste like banana! The strength of the banana flavour was completely unexpected as it really didn't smell that way, it's not an artificial unpleasant banana and I really enjoyed it. One thing the Tesco Banana Bliss bars have that the Nakd Banana bread doesn't, is the addition of Soy Protein Crispies. They aren't the same as the crunchy bits used in the Nakd Crunch bars and (please forgive me Nakd!) I think I prefer them. 

It's a tad sweeter tasting than the Nakd bars but actually has 5g less sugar, work that one out! 

I'm very impressed and I'll definitely be buying these again. 

8/10 

Berry Blast 

Nakd's berry flavoured bars are strawberry as is the norm, most berry cereal bars are strawberry or cherry but Tesco have switched things up and gone for cranberries. 

Nutritionally they've not got much going for them; they are higher in calories - if you're watching your waistline, have 18.2g of carbs of which 10.5g are sugar - not too great for a low carb/low sugar diet, only have 1.4g of fibre and 1.8g of protein so they're not going to be too filling either. They are low in salt though suprisingly, less than 0.01g per bar which is far from the norm in snacks, trust me we've been on a low salt and sodium hunt! 

Anyway, enough of the boring stuff. 

The only difference visually, was the lack of small white crunchies. I think that explains where the large amount of protein comes from in the banana bar and why there's nowhere near as much here.

Although the little bars have nearly four times more Dates, the raisins were all I could smell. I didn't notice any berry scent beforehand but I could taste the cranberry, it's a nice summery flavour which is quite light and almost refreshing tasting. Although there is actually more sugar in the berry bars, they don't taste as sweet as the banana, not that that's a bad thing, they just had more of a 'healthy, wholesome' taste. 

I like the previous soy pieces but I didn't miss the crunch here. The lack of them meant it had a thicker, chewier feel which wasn't better or worse, just different. 

Another lovely flavour, well done Tesco! These will be another regular buy. 

8/10 

Alpen light Banoffee bar

I normally stay away from cereal bars, especially the light ones, as I don't find them to be a very filling breakfast - but I saw these, saw the new label, saw the banoffee and had to buy them. 

As is standard its a mixed cereal bar and this one comes with toffee, sweetened banana and a plain chocolate drizzle. 

I'm not sure how obvious it is the photos above, but it's pictured on an ordinary side plate. In the wrapper it touches the sort of border but once I'd taken it out it wasn't anywhere near so be warned its a little bar it only weighs 19g! 

The bar is very sticky, I'm not too clued up on these so I'm not sure if that's usual or the toffee but it managed to stay quite moist and chewy even though most cereal is quite dry. 

The smell of banana is very powerful and it's the overwhelming taste I found thoughout. The toffee (which on reading the back are 7%, banana chips are only 6%) does come through in flavour but I didn't notice any the texture of any actual toffee pieces while I was eating it - it all felt the same. As for the chocolate it might aswell have not been there! I can't say whether it's nice or not as all I could taste was banana and toffee. 

This isn't bad, I liked the taste but then I am a banana fiend. I definitly wouldn't be buying these and eating them for breakfast though, in no way are they substantial enough for that. I had it with my sandwiches for lunch instead of a chocolate bar and time will tell if it leaves me feeling a bit fuller! 

Rating 6/10