Kashi Vive Cereal – Getting your taste buds and your digestive health alive again!
Written: May 20 '08
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Healthy, decent flavor, fills you up, slightly sweet taste without being overly sweet!
Cons: Some may be turned off by the flavor, but I enjoyed it!
The Bottom Line: A very healthy, delicious cereal. For something good for you, it doesn't taste "healthy" but it looks pretty strange!
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| Magick1's Full Review: Kashi Vive Probiotic Digestive Wellness Cereal Toa... |
When thinking of healthy for you cereal, the thing that pops into your mind is bland, yucky, fiber and twigs right? Or, at least something close to it, I would hazard to guess. I thought so too. As a matter of fact, I thought that about most of Kashi items until I sampled a couple of their TLC – Tasty Little Chewies granola bars like Kashi Cherry Dark Chocolate or
Honey Almond Flax.
Well, with these items giving me a wonderful surprise at healthier items without terrible, cardboard like taste, I decided to venture out. I came across the Kashi Mountain Medley Granola. Again, I had another wonderful experience. So, I began thinking that a healthier eating lifestyle wasn’t going to be so rotten after all. I came across this Vive Cereal and decided to take another adventure. I am always looking for better things to eat for breakfast than the almond poppy seed muffins that I seem to indulge in every morning!
The Product
The cereal, when you look at the picture on the box, looks like bran flakes with little twig like shapes and puffed rice or another puffed cereal. It reminds me a little bit of the KIX cereal in appearance (for the puffed rice pieces anyway). I wasn’t sold on it by the appearance. But, when reading the box and finding out the twig like shapes were actually graham twigs and the flakes were toasted flakes of the Kashi Seven Whole Grains & Sesame and the rice puffs were lightly dipped in vanilla, I thought it sounded excellent!
So, my first adventure opening the box and pouring out the cereal. I was surprised at how accurately the photo matched the actual product. How many times have you opened something, looked at it, and then looked back at the box and scratched your head wondering where they got the photo on the front of the box? This cereal wasn’t one of these for me. I matched beautifully (except there were no fresh blueberries in mine until I added some!)
The serving size, I was pleasantly surprised, is 1 ¼ cups of cereal. It seems like most are only 1 cup for serving size when I have tried other cereals out there. The bowl is nicely filled, delicious in flavor, just a touch of sweetness without feeling like you are eating sugar with a touch of cereal mixed in it!
The graham twigs were nice, crispy and gently flavored. If you are not a huge fan of graham crackers, this cereal should not be a downer for you, as the flavor doesn’t rule the overall taste of the cereal.
The puffed rice pieces are nicely sweetened, but they are not terribly sweet. They have a wonderful little crunch to them as well. The flakes of the seven grains were wonderful too. I noticed that when eating this cereal, you really have a lot of chewing to do, because of the content of the flakes, the twigs and the puffs. This is no airy, lightweight cereal here folks! The cereal also held its ground as far as staying crunchy too. Mind you, I did not let the cereal soak in milk for an hour or anything, but I got my cereal ready, got my daughter’s breakfast ready and took it to the table, got my daughter’s milk and then sat down for a hearty breakfast. Other times, I have poured the milk and just started chowing down on the cereal!
The Ingredients
What makes this cereal so special? Well, one item that it talks about on the box is the “probiotic digestive wellness cereal”. This helps provide friendly bacteria that you can find in some items like dairy or yogurts. They say it has Lactobacillus casei, just like some yogurts have and ginger that purportedly helps aid digestion as well!
Now, this might sound disgusting, but, they state this will help purify your body too, as the cereal has roughly half a cup of steamed broccoli in the cereal from extracts. The broccoli is stated to help cleanse the liver because of phytonutrients.
There is plenty of fiber in each serving as well, check it out below in the nutritional facts.
They also state on the box that this will help strengthen the intestinal tract due to calcium and Vitamin D. Again, check out the amount below.
Here’s what is in the cereal:
Wheat bran, rice, degerminated yellow corn meal, evaporated cane juice crystals, Kashi Seven Whole Grains & Sesame® flour (whole: oats, hard red winter wheat [graham flour], rye, triticale, long grain brown rice, barley, buckwheat, sesame seeds), oat fiber, vanilla coating (evaporated cane juice crystals, fractionated palm kernel oil, nonfat dry milk, nonfat yogurt [cultured nonfat milk, yogurt is heat treated after culturing], soy lecithin, vanilla extract), crisp rice (rice flour, salt), evaporated cane juice syrup, corn bran, chicory root fiber, expeller pressed canola oil, calcium carbonate, natural flavor, soy protein concentrate, salt, broccoli extract, ginger, annatto (color), lactobacillus casei probiotic culture, vitamin D
Contains: wheat, milk and soy ingredients!
Nutritional Information
This is based upon 1 serving which is 1 ¼ cups of cereal and assuming a standard 2,000 calorie diet.
Calories 170 Calories from Fat 25
Total Fat 2.5g or 4%
Saturated Fat 1g or 5%
Trans Fat 0g
Cholesterol 0mg or 0%
Sodium 100mg or 4%
Potassium 45mg or 1%
Total Carbohydrate 43g or 14%
Dietary Fiber 12g or 46%
Soluble Fiber 1g
Insoluble Fiber 11g
Sugars 10g
Protein 4g
Vitamin A 0%
Vitamin C 0%
Calcium 20%
Vitamin D 20%
If you need this information, the exchange is listed as 3 carbohydrates. All of the ingredients and the nutritional information I took directly from the box.
Overall Impressions
If you enjoy a truly sugary type cereal, this will be a bit disappointing. But, if you enjoy a mildly sweet cereal that packs a lot of fiber in a serving and you don’t like the bland old bran flake type cereal, I think you might enjoy this cereal very much. I know that I was pleasantly surprised by it myself. I am truly a sweet tooth, chocolate loving person. But, this cereal puts my sweet tooth craving aside and helps tide my hunger pangs for quite a good share of the morning!
I feel that it gives me a really good kick start to my day, sweetens my mood up and it helps me in many other ways. If you haven’t tried Kashi products and are thinking about eating healthier, or you need more fiber, check out some of their products! I have been very happy with everything that I have tried so far and I keep adding to my list. They have crackers, cereal, pizza, granola, granola bars, and a whole variety of items. Check out their website at www.kashi.com and there you can see what they have to offer! Enjoy!
~Thanks for spending time with me today!~
Kashi Cherry Dark Chocolate
Honey Almond Flax
Honey & Cinnamon Go Lean Oatmeal
Truly Vanilla Go Lean Oatmeal
Mountain Medley Granola
Recommended:
Yes
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