I recently noted an ad for belVita Breakfast Biscuits in a local grocery store flyer.
As a person who is not a big-breakfast eater on most days (exception: Sundays when my dear Joe makes a late morning "fry-up" fit for royalty, that I enjoy immensely!!!) I was eager to check this new product out. Even planned to purchase some, until I started doing some checking online.
I've thought for a very long time that Kraft Foods is lagging well behind many other food manufacturers when it comes to truly addressing the needs and wants of increasingly savvy consumers who are looking for quality products that really do "walk the talk".
The days of shoppers being at the mercy of the food "giants" with their clever marketing campaigns (often targeting young children with sugary junk) and lulling us all into believing that we can take their word at face value when it comes to (supposedly) wholesome, nutritious products, is long gone!
Hooray, and hooray again for ingredient lists and the Internet!
belVita is a "shortcut" attempt by Kraft/Nabisco to jump on the current and growing market trend for better, more nutritious snack and breakfast foods. Unfortunately, they've fallen short of the mark, again!
Check out the ingredients in the belVita Golden Oat Flavour: whole grain blend (rolled oats, rye flakes), enriched flour [wheat
flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate (vitamin b1), riboflavin
(vitamin b2), folic acid], high oleic canola oil, sugar, evaporated cane sugar,
whole grain wheat flour, malt syrup (from corn and barley), invert sugar, baking
soda, salt, soy lecithin, disodium pyrophosphate, datem, ferric orthophosphate
(iron), niacinamide, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin b6), riboflavin (vitamin
b2), thiamin mononitrate (vitamin b1).
Nothing new or noteworthy here. Plenty of sources of refined sugar though. Nothing organic either.
Come on Kraft, join the 21st Century!
This is nothing more than a glorified cookie, cleverly marketed as a healthy breakfast option.
Comes complete with some cutsey marketing tactics: belVita "in action" video
The nutritional "benefits" albeit limited of belVita.
Do these companies really think that the majority of consumers are still this gullible?
A couple of other points I noted at one of many belVita sites. They suggest repeatedly that these are to be eaten with other healthy foods such as a glass of milk, yogurt...to help sustain a person and stave off hunger for 4 hours. Maybe with the addition of other higher- protein foods, that might work. But with just 4 grams of protein in these breakfast cookies, they certainly aren't going to do the job on their own! A good "hit" of quality protein is in the 15-20 grams range for an average person per meal.
These cookies sell for about $3-4 per 250 gram box. For the price of a couple of boxes, a person could easily make a batch of energy bars at home that would be a lot better nutritionally and probably taste-wise too.
As one of many quick breakfast/snack alternatives: here's a popular recipe for No-Bake Energy Bars from my cookbook: Not Just for Vegetarians that you might want to try. They certainly are tasty, filling, kid-approved and easy to make too.
Countless other recipes for energy bars and other quick breakfast options online too. If you need "breakfast on the go" you don't have to settle for something as lame and lacking as belVita Breakfast Biscuits are.
And one more thing, what's with the letter casing for the name of this product? Is that suppose to make it better? Or does Kraft have 4 year olds in their marketing department these days LOL!
Overall rating for this product: BAD. 0 out of 5.
