I have been getting so much cereal lately for review. The thing with cereal is that I hate to keep opening new boxes until I’m done with the old ones - otherwise there are 10 boxes of cereal open. And since I don’t eat a TON of cereal for breakfast, they sometimes can go a bit stale.

Which is why I only opened this box of Fiber One Raisin Bran Clusters which I received months ago today. There seems to be a huge push on the whole fiber thing lately for manufacturers. This cereal claims to have 1 1/2 times the bran of standard Kellogg’s Raisin Bran. For me, I’m pretty “regular” and I eat enough of it daily, so it’s not so much of a concern. I guess a little extra doesn’t hurt - although, judging by the number of people who wrote in regarding the Fiber One Chewy Bars you want to go very easy on fiber rich foods when you’re first increasing it in your diet. Otherwise, you’ll have many a date with the throne…

Anyhow, the Fiber One Raisin Bran cereal looks like standard bran flakes with the addition of some raisins and small “clusters” of what I believe are oats and perhaps some almond bits. I’ve since learned not to even attempt to get a box-quality snapshot of cereal with the milk in it (who can compete with using Elmer’s Glue for milk?). So here’s the old spoon and bowl setup shot of just the cereal.

The first thing you get when you open the package is a very strong scent of brown sugar or molasses or honey. It’s a nice smell, but it’s quite powerful. I just poured some straight out of the box into a bowl.

I’m going to have to admit that I had to hunt for a few more raisins and clusters and place them strategically to make the photos look “normal”. The raisins themselves were pretty nice and plump, although pretty skimpy in quantity. Oat Clusters were even worse - I don’t even know why they bother having them in there if they are going to be that size and so scarce. I’ve had quite a few oat clusters cereals in the past, and as far as that goes, this is probably at the bottom as far as the quality and quantity of the clusters. The rest of the cereal is all bran flakes which looked pretty normal and probably above average in quality and size.

But actually, before I simply wrote off the raisins and clusters as absent I wanted to check on the “Contents May Have Settled During Shipping” phenomenon to make sure they werent’ all at the bottom. Sure enough, have a look at the below photo:

I realize that there’s nothing you can do about that during shipping. The raisins - well you can’t get much larger ones than that. I think they should make the oat clusters bigger, so that they don’t all sift toward the bottom. If you do get this cereal you may want to try take out the inner bag and shake it to redistribute all the goodies.

As far as taste goes, the cereal was very pleasant to eat. I haven’t had raisin bran in a very long time so I can’t judge how this cereal is on the scale. I do remember the raisins in standard Kellogg’s Raisin Bran being extremely small, hard and super sugary. The ones in this cereal are larger, softer and aren’t coated with sugar - pretty excellent. Just wish there were more of them.

I hardly even noticed the taste of the oats since they were pretty much absent. The bran itself has a fairly good taste, though it’s a bit sweeter than I had expected. A big brown sugar flavor as to be expected. I had it by itself and with milk. I still have to confess that I still like eating cereal without the milk best as a snack, but it was pretty decent with milk too - the bran didn’t get soggy immediately.

As far as price goes - I couldn’t find the MSRP online (even at Vons.com). But I figure it’s the usual 3 to 4 bucks. I got it for free to review so I can’t complain. Until I know the real price I’m going to vote that part a non-factor. I’m also going to take into account the extremely competitive aura around healthy cereal right now. Would I buy this again? Possibly - but then there are a billion of other healthy cereals to try.

P.S. The physical therapy for my shoulder is going all right - so far it’s not making a difference. That is, it’s not any worse, but not any better. Because the injury is not extremely painful when I’m just sitting still, treatment is limited and mostly I’m trying to learn about specific exercises that involve the muscle that is messed up. I guess we will see. In the meantime - I’m also trying to learn to mouse with my left hand. Ugh, that part is going slow - especially when using photoshop!

Price: Free (MSRP: $3-4)
Found At: Sent in for review
Cheap Eats Score: 5/10