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 

Oat So Simple Multi Grain Fruit Muesli

Now the cold has finally kicked in I have the perfect excuse to buy even more warm cereals. Morrisons are selling 12 sachets of Quaker Oats microwavable Oat So Simple porridge for £1 (it has to be microwavable for me, it's nicer on the hob but God help me when I forget to soak the saucepan) and while picking myself up a box I spied Multi Grain Porridge -  Fruit Muesli oats, rye & barley. 

The method is the same as the Kellogg's porridge: empty the sachet into a bowl, fill the empty sachet with milk up to the line, microwave for 2 and a half minutes, stir and wait! 

Emptying the sachet didn't give me much hope, there were a lot of oats and not much else but that's the thing with this type of easy porridge, you can't change your mind once they're open so I stuck the milk in and waited. 

The good bits must have been hidden as it certainly wasn't plain porridge after a zap - it had a delicious fruity scent and I could see the raisins, sultanas, cranberry and apple pieces. 

There is added sugar. it comes quite low on the ingredients list so there isn't much but it tastes a lot sweeter than ordinary Oat So Simple. It doesn't taste artificial or sugary sweet but rather a sweetness from the fruits which has sort of soaked through without the flavour. 

I have one photo of the porridge post-microwave, obviously porridge isn't very appealing to look at but I did try - this comes out steaming and so I ended up with a gallery of not much else besides a misty lens!

The raisins were large, juicy, chewy and had survived the microwave well.The cranberry and apple pieces were small but intense, the cranberry being the stronger of the two, and had a sweet taste that really went well with the comforting porridge. There was also small crunchy and chewy pieces, which I'm guessing are the rye and barley, they didn't add much flavour but I appreciated the texture between that and the thick porridge. 

The Multi Grain Fruit Muesli is actually described as a delicious porridge bursting with great taste and texture, and I think they've nailed it. Overall it's sweet but it's a lovely natural sweetness, it doesn't taste artificial at all and somehow manages to taste both good and good for you. There aren't many products that can claim to do that, the general rule is (with processed products) the better it is for you, the worse it tastes!

Very nice, its got my favourite porridge at the moment (Kellogg's Crunchy Nut) beat on the fact its healthier - made with wholegrains, high in fibre and protein, reasonable on sugar and low in fats and salt - but it tastes just as good! 

8/10 

Liberté Greek style yoghurts

There are a few new Liberté yoghurts that have been released recently and I picked two of them up to try, Muesli & Summer Fruits and Seeds & Mixed Berries. 

First up was Muesli & Summer Fruits - a low fat strained Greek style yoghurt with red fruits muesli. 

The ingredients have confused me a little, I'm unsure if this is actually a plain yoghurt with the fruit added to it or a fruit flavoured yoghurt but either way it has a delicious taste. Strawberry is the main fruit and to me the main taste too, it's sweet, fresh and despite being low fat is thick and creamy. 

The muesli and summer berries could have been just an added bonus but they are delicious too. The muesli is chunky, chewy and give a nice little bite that cuts through the thick yoghurt beautifully. The textures work very well together and made for a very filling snack despite this being quite a small pot. 

There was certainly a lot of muesli in my yoghurt, sometimes you find a small layer on the top or bottom of any mix ins like this, but these were everywhere throughout. Mixed together this all gives a very thick texture which I absolutely loved. I'll be buying more of this flavour as not only is it filling and convenient but it actually tasted good too! 

Rating 8/10 

Next I tried Seeds & Mixed Berries. The description says yoghurt on a layer of berries and seeds but I get hangry and eat without noticing so initially I thought I'd got a duff pack when I peeled the lid back. 

Although it looked like an ordinary plain yoghurt I could smell the berries straight away, unlike the muesli pot there was none that stood out especially, it just smelt like a lovely fruity mix. Aswell as appearance it tasted like an ordinary Greek style yoghurt too, very thick with a slight tang though it is slightly creamier than other brands I've tried recently. There was a mildly sweet aftertaste where the berry layer had penetrated through a little. 

I gave up and gave it a stir (I know you're supposed to but for reviewing purposes!!) and finally got through to the berry layer. It's deliciously sweet and very fruity. As with the muesli version it tastes lovely and fresh and counters the plain yoghurt beautifully. There are sunflower, pumpkin and Lin seeds here and they are huge! They give an interesting sensation which I've not had with yoghurt before. The sunflower seeds are very crunchy and what I'm guessing are the Lin seeds (sorry I've never had them before) are chewy. 

I was a little disappointed that no matter how much I stirred this yoghurt the fruit and seeds just kept sinking to the bottom. Percentage wise both tubs have a similar amount of filling and berries but the seeds tub tastes a lot more plain and a lot less substantial than the muesli which is surprising as muesli actually has less calories. 

I wouldn't buy this one again, it wasn't that it isn't nice just a bit boring and not as tasty as the first. 

Rating 6/10