Flavors Tried: Cinnamon Toast Crunch & Golden Grahams
Price: $32 for 8 bars when purchased online ($4 per bar)
Nutrition: 220 Calories, 9g Fat, 22g Carbs (8g Fiber, 1g Sugar), 20g Protein
As a huge fan of both Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Golden Grahams cereal (easily two of the greatest cereals of all time), I was over the moon when I heard that they had released protein bars. I mean, just watch the first few seconds of the review video above to see my excitement.
My expectations were through the roof, and I couldn’t wait to try them out.
Unfortunately, after trying both bars, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed. Are these protein bars bad? Not necessarily.
Are they what I was hoping for? Absolutely not.
Allow me to explain…
Nutrition Breakdown
Both bars have fairly similar nutrition facts, with the Cinnamon Toast Crunch bar being slightly lower in calories and carbs.
The Golden Grahams bar has 240 calories, 10 grams of fat, 24 carbs, 8 grams of fiber, and 2 grams of sugar, while the Cinnamon Toast Crunch bar has 220 calories, 9 grams of fat, 22 carbs, 7 grams of fiber, and 2 grams of sugar.
Both bars have 20 grams of protein, so they’re definitely solid sources of protein.
It’s worth noting that both bars also have a long list of ingredients, so if you’re someone who favors simplicity, you likely won’t be into these protein bars. Then again, you’re probably not reaching for a Cinnamon Toast Crunch bar expecting minimal ingredients.
Cinnamon Toast Crunch Protein Bar Review
Cinnamon Toast Crunch is my favorite cereal of all time, so naturally, my expectations for this bar were insanely high.
When you open up the protein bar, you definitely smell cinnamon, and there’s an interesting cream layer along the top.
You can see little cinnamon sugar crunchy pieces along the top as well, but they are not actual Cinnamon Toast Crunch pieces, which seems like a very strange choice.
The interior of the bar is pretty standard and looks very much like other protein bars you’ll find on the market: thick & chewy with some crunchy pieces throughout.
Now, the important question: does this bar taste like Cinnamon Toast Crunch?
Not even a little bit.
This bar tastes like a very generic cinnamon-flavored protein bar. If you grabbed it off the shelf and it was made by some company you had never heard of, you’d think this was a pretty average protein bar.
Not terrible, but not great either.
But when you put Cinnamon Toast Crunch on the label, the expectation is that it’s going to taste like Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and that isn’t the case here at all.
Going into this review, I was hoping this protein bar would have some resemblance of those delicious cereal bars that they sell…
But there is zero comparison.
If the regular Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal bar is a 10/10 (which it is), the protein bar is about a 2/10 on the same scale.
As a regular protein bar, it’s fine. But as a Cinnamon Toast Crunch protein bar it is incredibly disappointing.
Golden Grahams Protein Bar Review
The Golden Grahams protein bar looks like a delicious bar, but it tells the same tale as the Cinnamon Toast Crunch protein bar.
As a regular protein bar, it’s fine. It tastes like a pretty generic protein bar.
But when it comes to Golden Grahams, it has none of that flavor you’d expect. Golden Grahams taste like a delicious bowl of honey graham crackers, and this protein bar just tastes like… a protein bar.
If you love Golden Grahams, I’ll save you the trouble and tell you to skip this bar, because you’re going to be 100% disappointed.
Final Thoughts
I don’t know how General Mills dropped the ball so badly on these protein bars, but they do not taste at all like the cereals on the label.
If these were just generic cinnamony protein bars, they’d be fine. Certainly not at the top of my protein bar list, but they’d pass as decent enough bars.
But when you market them as Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Golden Grahams flavored, and they have none of those same flavors (let alone actual cereal pieces), that is an extreme disappointment.
After reviewing these bars, I took it upon myself to create ACTUAL Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Golden Grahams protein bars, and you can find that recipe here.
They’re not quite as high in protein (the bar contains 185 calories and 11g of protein), but they are made from actual cereal, which is what General Mills should have given us to begin with.
