I own a business. It’s super stressful, it’s long and early hours and sometimes it’s just plain frustrating. I always forget breakfast, apparently half of Kiwis are with me there, and I always end up having something sweet to pick me up during the day. Yes, I know that’s like the cardinal sin and we’re not allowed to admit it in January because it’s the month for resolutions and being healthy but it’s true and that’s the way it is.
About a week ago I was contacted and asked to review the new Mother Earth Brekkie on the Go! products. I obviously said yes because I do actually eat the Mother Earth cereal bars. The Brekkie on the Go! packs are pouches of muesli bites with little bits and pieces in it. So I said yes and sighed with relief when I realised I did not have to panic about breakfast anymore.
Because the products are supposed to be a breakfast replacement (like having a bowl of cereal on the go) I wanted to test them for a week and see how full I felt during the morning after having a pouch for breakfast.
There are 3 flavours to choose from: Apricot and Almond; Dark Chocolate Hazelnuts and Cranberry and Cashews.
I was sent a box of each to try and each box has 6 pouches in it. The RRP is $7.49 for a box which works out at $1.25 per pouch.
I outsourced to a friend of mine, giving her a pouch of each flavour and keeping 5 of each for myself, one for every weekday. Now my friend went into a lot of detail so I’m just going to do a small summary of what she found and then we’ll move onto what I thought which is obviously the most important thing anyway.
Jo said: “Muesli chunks in all three were quite chewy, was expecting more crunch but still tasty. Wasn’t too sweet. The nuts in all three tasted fresh and unsweetened/raw which was nice.”
I tried a pouch every morning and found that I was fairly full until about mid-morning if I had just the pouches and nothing else. This was obviously not ideal so after two mornings I added a piece of fruit and a glass of juice or a cup of coffee to my breakfast and got a much better result. I ate this at around 9am and felt full until around 1pm when I could take lunch. Overall, I think that’s pretty good going for a small pouch, a piece of fruit and something to drink. I’ve never had that result with a bowl of cereal.
My friend Jo did comment that she found would have liked a more even ratio of fruit and nut to the cereal bites in the Brekkie on the Go! pouches but I actually didn’t find this a problem at all. I found that I could have a piece of fruit and a nut with either one or two bites and it was a good flavour combination together.
Each pouch has a very different flavour combination so I wanted to talk about each flavour individually.
Apricot and Almond
While I love almonds, I hate apricots with a passion. I just picked out the apricot pieces and ate the rest. I really enjoyed the almonds and the cereal bites. I wouldn’t buy this flavour pack because of my personal preference but if you like apricots then you’re pretty set I think.
Cranberry and Cashew
I really liked the cranberries and the cashews included with the pouches. I would definitely buy this flavour pack without any hesitation.
Dark Chocolate and Hazelnuts
This was my favourite flavour. I really loved this pack and I would buy this again and again and again. I really loved the dark chocolate pieces, they were like small blocks rather than just shaved pieces of chocolate. There were also whole hazelnuts in the pack which I thought was fantastic. It was also nice to have a non-fruity option to go with my whole piece of fruit and chocolate goes well with coffee so that was a win win.
The Brekkie on the Go! packs are available nationwide now in the breakfast aisle in supermarkets and you can also have a look at the Mother Earth website for more information or join their facebook page to keep up to date with their products.