Eat Well Be Well Whole Grains and Almonds Cereal Crunch

There's a lot of information on the Eat Well, Be Well Whole Grains and Almonds Cereal box. The entire back of the box is dedicated to lengthy information about the product's healthy whole grains and lack of sugar and sugar alcohols. Oddly enough, nowhere does it say the word "Splenda." Which it should. If you read the ingredient list, you'll notice the word "Sucralose." Sucralose is Splenda, an artificial sweetener. Not that there's necessarily anything "wrong" with that, but if they're going to be so darn informative about everything else, they should make this fact a little more obvious. They do mention the actual word "Splenda" on their web site, but it's hard to find under all of the talk about how unlike their competitors they don't rely on "smoke and mirrors" to produce sugar-free foods by relying on "sugar alcohols or refined carbohydrates" which "provide no health benefit at all." Um, last time I checked, Splenda wasn't sitting next to the wheat germ on supermarket shelves.

Ok, enough ranting, let's get to the actual product itself. I gave it to my husband to try, and the first comment out of his mouth was, "Is this bird food?" This was based simply on the texture. The cereal contains little tiny whole wheat corn flakes, rice crispy-like brown rice (without the fun of snap, crackle, pop) , and thinly sliced almonds. As for the taste, it has a very sweet, brown-sugar-like flavor, with a lingering and unpleasant artificial sweetener aftertaste.

The bottom line: I might throw this in some yogurt for a mid-morning snack over the next few weeks, but I won't be buying another box. Unless you need to severely restrict sugar in your diet, I wouldn't recommend this product--especially because I don't like the way the company seems to be trying to downplay the fact that it contains an artificial sweetener.

I'm also a little annoyed that I found this in the natural foods section of my local chain grocery store. If you're diabetic or need to control your sugar intake for any reason, it's great that these types of products exist. But they're not really natural!

About Eat Well Be Well Foods Inc.: According to their web site, Eat Well Be Well Foods' mission is to produce food that helps people manage diabetes and obesity. Their theory is that people want great-tasting food, so there need to be sugar-free alternatives. The Oregon-based company is privately held.

Eat Well Be Well Whole Grain and Almonds Cereal Crunch Ingredients: Whole grains (wheat flakes, crisp brown rice), almonds, barley malt, salt, natural flavors, acesulfame potassium, sucralose.

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Posted by Blogpire Productions at March 23, 2006 8:37 AM

Hello,

Your revuew on Eat well be Well Cereal is not entirely fair. I called the company and the reason that they do not claim Splenda on the box is that the patent for Splenda has expitred and there are other suppliers emerging for sucralose. They don't want to be locked into advertising Splenda when they may be using an improved or more affordable alternative. Also, they addressed the Natural section palcement for their product line in some grocery stores and said that they do not like it ewither, but have no choice in the matter. They want to get their product out there for diabetics, but most stores have not created a section for these people. They did sya that this is changing.

I hope this helps. Thanks for the work you do.

Posted by: Jason Flores at April 14, 2006 7:05 PM