Review: Kellogg's FiberPlus Antioxidants Protein Mixed Nut Bar

It's like Kellogg's and General Mills (via Nature Valley) are having a competition to see who can put the most products on sale at my local grocery stores recently.  It's been great for me, the consumer, as it leads to a lot of reviews, but I can't see how it can be great for those companies unless they are using it as a way to introduce new products and force them onto customers.  If that is the case, they've forced this new product on to me as I picked up a box of five these Kellogg's FiberPlus Antioxidants Protein Mixed Nut Bars at a sale price of $2.49.  Each bar is 1.41 ounces and is 170 calories with ten grams of protein and seven grams of fiber.  I think this is the first time I've seen a bar that goes for both the protein AND the fiber market, so how can it go wrong?  Actually, there are tons of ways that can go wrong, especially when it comes to flavor and that's why I'm here to test it out.

This bar starts off with a chocolate base that smells strongly of chocolate and since I'm a choc-o-holic, that's an awesome start.  On top of that chocolate base is a rice crisp mix that also contains the bar namesake mixed nuts.  Those mixed nuts include peanuts and almonds in this case and I certainly did not get shorted either in quantity or quality (size) of the nuts.  One thing I do wonder though is that when most things classify themselves as mixed nuts products, they usually contain three or more nuts.  Technically, I guess "mixed" could mean two or more, but I usually see it with three or more.  I guess Kellogg's interpreted "mixed" literally and only went with two nuts.  Anyway you look at it though, I just wasted three sentences (now four) talking about something completely idiotic that does not matter in the grand scheme of life.  Back to the bar...the bar is then topped with more of that delicious smelling chocolate, so with nuts and chocolate, this bar already has a recipe for success in terms of its construction.

That recipe for success continued when I actually took a bite out of the bar and started considering the flavor.  It wasn't perfect, but it was still tasty.  The nuts themselves added great crunch to what was a chewy rice crisp mix and I can honestly say that the taste of the almonds was quite strong in this bar, which is something that I haven't tasted often in all the reviews that I've done.  Usually, especially when fighting for flavor against peanuts, the almonds take the back seat.  In the case of this bar, they were the leader of the pack and that was a nice change of pace since the peanut flavor was some of the weakest peanut flavor I've ever dealt with.  While the nuts worked great in this bar, the chocolate only worked so-so.  Don't get me wrong, the chocolate was okay, but it seemed as if it was only a semi-sweet chocolate at best and was really only there for texture as it did succeed in being extremely dense.  Where it failed, in my opinion, was in its sweetness as it was just kind of a bland chocolate.

Buy It or Fly By It?  I complain about the bland chocolate, but that's just a personal preference as I prefer sweetness.  In the grand scheme of things, the chocolate was fine and this was a tasty bar that Kellogg's should get kudos for and I'll give a BUY IT rating.  If you aren't a whiner like me that wants things that are absurdly sweet, then grab this bar and I think you'll enjoy it a lot.

BUY IT!!