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Rice Bubbles Multigrain Berry Flavour | Chewsday Review

Who else remembers Rice Bubbles Multigrain? 🙋‍♀️ I sure do! Mainly because I wrote a Chewsday Review about them and they had the most terrible ad about a superhero flying across a milky ocean teaming with exotic fish while crunchy stars twinkle in the sky. Yep, it was a lot. But after their disappearance, they have returned with some slight changes. How do they compare to Rice Bubbles and other cereals? Let’s find out…

Ingredients

Cereals (74%) (Rice Flour, Whole Grain Oat Flour [25%], Maize Flour), Sugar, Oat Fibre, Minerals (Calcium Carbonate, Iron, Zinc Oxide), Natural Colours (Paprika Extract, Carmine), Salt, Natural Flavour, Vitamin (Vitamin D, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Riboflavin, Folate).
Another cereal with sugar as the second ingredient! Let’s find out if the sugar is as high as I suspect it will be…
Paprika extract and carmine give the product its purple berry colour. This seems to be the only semblance of berries in this product, as they don’t specify what the natural flavour is and there’s no mention of berries anywhere (aside from the name and the packaging saying “shown with added berries”).
Allergens: Gluten. May contain wheat, peanuts and tree nuts.

Positives

Even with added salt (sodium), this product is low in sodium (140mg per 100g). This is a lot lower than original Rice Bubbles which have 420mg per 100g of sodium, and lower than Vita Brits (395mg per 100g), Uncle Tobys Vanilla O’s Low Sugar Cheerios (285mg per 100g) and Weet-Bix (270mg per 100g).
Fibre meets recommendations at 3.4g per serve (we’re aiming for at least 3g per serve). This is slightly less than Weet-Bix (4.3g per serve) and Low Sugar Cheerios (4.8g per serve) but it’s a huge improvement from original Rice Bubbles which have 0.8g fibre per serve.
This product has added iron, calcium and other vitamins and minerals. This is the same as original Rice Bubbles (except they don’t have added calcium). Not all cereals are fortified with iron so this is great for fussy eaters who may not be eating many high iron foods.
Total fat and saturated fat are low, as with most cereals.

Negatives

Marketing

“Support their immune system with Vitamin D + 4 Essential Nutrients.” This product does contain added vitamins but it’s not going to save your kiddo from the daycare bugs. Eating a wide variety of veggies, fruit, protein and grains will support their immune system better than Rice Bubbles Multigrain.
“Source of wholegrain and fibre.” True
“Berry-liciously yummy fun!” I mean, the ingredients list just says “natural flavours” so I’m going to assume that they’re berry flavoured.

Alternatives

This product is lower in salt and has more fibre than original Rice Bubbles, but it’s still higher in sugar than I would like and it’s expensive. If I had to describe it in one word (besides berry-licious for obvious reasons) it would be “meh.”
Weet-Bix and Low Sugar Cheerios are always my recommended cereals, because they’re low in sugar, salt and fat, high in fibre and are iron fortified. Add some berries (or natural flavours) and you’ve got yourself a berry-licious breakfast cereal!