Coles High Protein Vanilla Puffs | Chewsday Review
I'm dipping back into the cereal aisle this week and feeling a little hopeful that this could be a contender for replacing Low Sugar Cheerios - maybe it's just the vanilla flavour, but let's find out!
- Wheat Protein, Rice Flour, Sugar, Maize, Wholemeal Wheat Flour, Dietary Fibre (Inulin), Cinnamon (0.3%), Salt, Natural Flavour, Sweetener (Steviol Glycosides).
- Allergens: wheat and gluten.
- May contain: almond, cashew, hazelnut, lupin, macadamia, cow’s milk, peanut, pecan, pistachio, soy.
- Despite having added salt these vanilla puffs only contain 171mg per 100g, which is less than Weet-bix and Sultana Bran.
- Like most breakfast cereals the saturated fat is low (0.7g per 100g).
- These don’t contain any added iron. This is a big negative.
- Sugar is only just above my 15 g per 100g target (coming in at 16g per 100g), so this is a close call, but it also contains sweetener so I expect they taste very sweet. Sweeteners are considered safe but we don’t have specific evidence for their use for children so it’s not something I recommend including regularly.
- Fibre is 2.4g per serve (45g), which is okay but for a brekkie cereal I’m hoping for >3g per serve. For example Weet-bix contain 4g of fibre per serve (which is only 31g) and Sultana Bran is a whopping 7.3g of fibre per serve (45g).
- These seem expensive for a Coles brand product. At $5 for 300g, they work out to be $16.70 per kg. Lots of branded cereals tend to be around the $7 mark for a 450g box, but you can usually stock up when they’re 1/2 price.
- “4.5 star health rating.” This means these compare pretty well to other cereals.
- “Source of fibre.” Bit of a meh claim, it’s not considered a “good” source or an “excellent” source either.
- “13g of protein per serve”. The world is obsessed with protein. Yes, we need some protein BUT we also need carbohydrates, fat and fibre! If you’ve been around here for a while you’ll know that most Aussie kids get way more protein than they actually need from everyday foods (e.g. bread, pasta and cheese).
- “With cinnamon”…. can they really say that when it’s 0.3% cinnamon?!
- Overall this cereal contains a moderate amount of added sugar, but doesn’t contain added iron and is lower in fibre than I would typically like for a regular breakfast cereal.
- It looks like the hunt for another cereal option continues! I’m not feeling confident about finding a replacement for Low Sugar Cheerios once my stash runs out.
- As it stands my preferred brekkie options are still Weet-bix, Sultana Bran and oats.
The composition of food products changes regularly. The nutritional values of the products in this Chewsday Review were correct at the time of publishing.
