I also remember a line in every commercial: "Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs! Part of your balanced breakfast!" And they would show a bowl of their cereal with milk and a strawberry, a piece of white bread toast and a glass of orange juice. (Translated to nutritional values, that was carbs in a bowl with milk, carbs on a plate, and carbs in a glass.)
Things have changed since then. Saturday morning TV has few animated cartoons (Bugs Bunny and Road Runner, et al. are long since retired in favor of Japanese-style anime.) And I no longer buy cereal based on secret toy surprises. Now I buy it based on nutritional labels. But what do I look for? I like a cereal with fiber, low sodium, and some protein. Up until this week, my cereal of choice has been Kellogg's All Bran Original. It meets all my requirements.
Last weekend I was shopping at Aldi (my preferred grocery store) and found a new option. It's their store brand ("Millville") and the cereal is called Fiber Now. I bought a box. It is great. I will show you the numbers and let you compare them for yourself.
The Aldi cereal has 50% more fiber and 25% fewer calories. However, it is not perfect. It does contain 25% more sodium, 50% less protein, and 40% less potassium. But personally, I am not worried about getting enough protein, because I have a protein smoothie almost every day, and I get about 1000mg of potassium in my coffee (I add 1 tablespoon of black strap molasses to my 20 ounce coffee mug every day.) I am always concerned about fiber and calories, so Aldi's choice hit my target.
One other comparison. Kellogg's All Bran costs $3.50-4.00, while Aldi's Fiber Now costs $1.89. (Financial budgets are as important as calorie budgets.)
So, what does MY balanced breakfast look like? Today's was this:
The nutritional numbers for the entire breakfast:
Calories: 523 20% of the day's calories
Fat | 25.2g | 35.4% |
Saturated Fat | 6.8g | |
Cholesterol | 474mg | |
Sodium | 558.7mg | |
Carbohydrates | 64.3g | 40.1% |
Fiber | 34.3g | |
Protein | 39.1g | 24.4% |
This breakfast is a VERY balance meal, and net carbs of only 30g! Cholesterol is higher than what is generally suggested to consume, but I have never had a problem with serum cholesterol so I don't really consider that to be a number of concern (however, if you have cholesterol issues, then maybe only use one egg, or two egg whites only.)
(Full disclosure: I have no financial interest in Aldi, Penzey's or any other company or product I mention. If I talk about it, it is only because I am a very satisfied consumer. That being said, if anyone who reads my blog is the CEO of any of these companies and wants to talk with me further, I am always open to negotiations!)
That is really cool- thank you!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment! I always appreciate feedback!
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