Tinfoil Chef

Sometime in mid December we received a sample of Fiber One honey clusters whole grain cereal made by General Mills. In all the mess, stress, and general BS that flowed like water through the rest of that month it ended up forgotten in a kitchen cabinet.

During the power outage caused by the recent ice storm I found it again and decided to give it a try since foods that didn’t need to be cooked were high on my list of wants.

At first I approached it with a somewhat skeptical attitude because, in spite of knowing better, things with a “health food” look to them have always put me on the culinary defensive due to their legendary (if not always deserved) reputation for not being very appealing.

It turned out to be a hearty tasting cereal with a good crunch that’s emphasized by the “clusters”. The package didn’t say outright what they were clusters of, however from the taste and based on the ingredients list on the package I’d say they were most likely walnut, almond, oat and honey.

In the end it reminded me of the old Wheaties only with an extra crunch. The 13 grams of dietary fiber gives an added benefit from it, providing roughly half of a days requirement. On the other hand, the total carbohydrates weighed in at a whopping 42 grams. That’s a LOT of carbs when you look at it from the standpoint of somebody that’s seriously in need of losing weight.

All in all it’s a decent cereal, especially if you’re active and need to boost your intake of dietary fiber. On the other hand, if you’re trying to lose weight, especially if you’re on the Atkins diet, you’ll probably want to find another source of fiber that doesn’t come with more than a whole day’s worth of carbs in one serving.

(Atkins’ “Induction Phase” limits carbs to 20 grams per day. In later phases, the number of allowable carbs per day increases but usually not high enough to make a 42 carb serving a good idea.)

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