Monday, June 3, 2013

Review: Kellogg's Special K Nourish Maple Brown Sugar Crunch Hot Cereal


So apparently Kellogg's has had enough of Quaker hogging the single serve oatmeal cup market and has finally gotten their own product to market to compete in the great oatmeal wars (a creation of my imagination).  That new product introduction leads me to another Kellogg's review as I take a look at this Kellogg's Special K Nourish Maple Brown Sugar Crunch Hot Cereal cup. I got a two-pack on sale at Kroger for $2.99 and each cup in the pack is 1.83 ounces with 190 calories, eight grams of protein and five grams of fiber. It's also a multi-grain blend with quinoa, so that's exciting...not.



My first observation when removing the lid and then the protective foil covering was that they certainly were not cheating on brown sugar or maple for that matter. There was quite a bit of brown sugar noticeable by both sight and smell. And while I couldn't see the maple, I could certainly smell it. In fact, this cup smelled just like morning pancakes, so that was wonderful. After zapping it in the microwave for 45 seconds and then allowing the oats to steep for another minute, I mixed in the almonds and what I saw was what you see above...typical looking oatmeal with a fair amount of almond mixed in. One thing that was moderately disappointing was that after I heated this up, the pancake smell dissipated to the point that it was only barely noticeable. Boo!

As I took my first spoonful down, that dissipation of my pancake analogy continued as the maple component of this practically disappeared and the brown sugar lessened itself down to being more of an accent flavor as opposed to a focal point like its smell was when I first ripped open the container.  The oatmeal was soft and standard stuff, as I'd expect, but what made this kind of fun was the presence of the almonds. I don't typically eat a lot of oatmeal that includes nuts, so having the crunch from the almonds to break up the softness of the oats itself was a welcome change of pace. In fact, I would actually classify it is as kind of fun, although that's only because it's something different for me.  If it truly was something I considered fun, well, I'd have to re-consider some of my life choices because that would mean I lead an especially boring life.

Buy It or Fly By It?  This turned out to be a semi-pancake-y, semi-crunchy cup of oats and while neither of those things excelled by any means, they performed well enough for me to give this a BUY IT rating.  Keeping in mind that I'm using the word fun very loosely, I would definitely classify this cup of oatmeal as that and recommend  it to anyone if you can get it at the right price point.  Either way, Kellogg's has put out a worth challenger to Quaker in my made-up oatmeal single serving cup war.

BUY IT!!

6 comments:

  1. I thought the product tasted...papery. Ick. I thought the first cup I made, perhaps I didn't heat the water up hot enough. The second cup, I boiled the water and added. It still has a papery/cardboardy taste to it and the oats seems still undercooked. I am not a picky eater by any stretch either. Won't buy again.

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  2. I enjoyed the product but was disappointed with the amount. I opened the rather large packaging expecting it to be at least half filled but it was some tiny pieces of oatmeal at the bottom of the container. Why use such a large container for such little oatmeal? The taste was fine - I don't think I'll buy it again because it felt like a rip off when I opened the container

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  3. The Container holds more than 1&1/4 cups of water. The fruit and nuts come in a seperate package. after adding water and heating up, so the oatmeal expanded, I ended up with 1/3 of a cup of oatmeal. (Imeasured this - I was so dissapointed with the amount) I'm still hungry! Didn't taste any different than quaker oatmeal packets- at 3 times the price! Don't buy!

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  4. i did not care for this at all....tasted papery.....fake...it was not worth the price and I am hungry still....I like the quaker oates single serve cups so much better....would not buy this again and would not recommend it to anyone...it gets 2 thumbs down from me

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  5. I just had this this morning the cinnamon raisin pecan and I WILL BUY it again.. IT was SO GOOD!!

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  6. I LOVE IT!! cinnamon raisin pecan.. I will BUY it again.. Had it for the first time this morning..

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