Cookies for breakfast! No, your inner nine-year old didn't mishear you. And we're not talking about the Hollywood Cookie Diet, either. These are honest-to-goodness cookies...probably the ones your inner child would make a face at, but still. Cookies. You win some, you lose some. Already a hit in the UK, much like One Generation, Nutella, and the Royal Wedding, people are crazy about belVita. Although "belVita fever" does actually sound like some sort of jungle-based disease straight out of Conrad.
Kraft sent these over in the three varieties currently available- apple cinnamon, blueberry, and honey oat. A few logistical issues presented themselves immediately after opening the box. For starters, while the UK is clearly a very educated and clever place in close proximity to France, where the name's double entendre invokes whimsical thoughts of a "good life." Here, it just rhymes with Velveeta, an association nobody really wants to have when they think of breakfast or cookies. In the packaging department, while belVita markets itself as an on-the-go supplementary alternative to less healthy foods, it lacks the structural support of a granola bar to just toss in a purse or bag and forget about. Even before we tried transporting these, they were crumbled out of the box and broken in many places. Trying to bring them somewhere would likely reduce these to crumbs.
So, the flavors. Unquestionably, blueberry was our favorite out of the three. It tasted like a buttery cross between a Lorna Doone cookie and a muffin, complete with chewy dehydrated blueberries in each cookie. The combination of the crispy, dense oats and the fruit was delicious and it made a great addition to oatmeal as well as a fine stand-alone snack. Honey oat was more basic and would likely be good in the morning as a bland, easy snack before your taste buds wake up and demand real food. The only one that we really disliked was apple cinnamon. It had a fake, synthetic flavor that seemed more like the aftermath of chewing green apple bubble gum and then eating a cookie than a flavor unto its own. It was far too sweet and had a grittier texture than the rest. All were sweet, but could have used a little more salt to enhance the buttery cookie base.
While I like the concept of belVita- eating a few different things for breakfast to mix up the selection, I don't think it's a very healthy way to start the day. Its fiber is really the chief appeal- it adds an extra 280 calories and 8 grams of fat to whatever you eat. Although I've never been much of a breakfast person and prefer to nurse a cup of coffee, I still think that this is counterproductive if one is trying to eat better. That being said, one of these made a wonderful topping for my salted molasses oatmeal.
Labels: 5, breakfast, british, cookie, snack
So, the flavors. Unquestionably, blueberry was our favorite out of the three. It tasted like a buttery cross between a Lorna Doone cookie and a muffin, complete with chewy dehydrated blueberries in each cookie. The combination of the crispy, dense oats and the fruit was delicious and it made a great addition to oatmeal as well as a fine stand-alone snack. Honey oat was more basic and would likely be good in the morning as a bland, easy snack before your taste buds wake up and demand real food. The only one that we really disliked was apple cinnamon. It had a fake, synthetic flavor that seemed more like the aftermath of chewing green apple bubble gum and then eating a cookie than a flavor unto its own. It was far too sweet and had a grittier texture than the rest. All were sweet, but could have used a little more salt to enhance the buttery cookie base.
While I like the concept of belVita- eating a few different things for breakfast to mix up the selection, I don't think it's a very healthy way to start the day. Its fiber is really the chief appeal- it adds an extra 280 calories and 8 grams of fat to whatever you eat. Although I've never been much of a breakfast person and prefer to nurse a cup of coffee, I still think that this is counterproductive if one is trying to eat better. That being said, one of these made a wonderful topping for my salted molasses oatmeal.