The answers to these questions and more...are definitely not in this food review. But what I will tell you is that this cereal tastes good, provided you're a fan of vanilla, granola, and almonds. It's crunchy, clustery, and filling. It's sweet but not too sweet. Sonia likes it with yogurt. Bonus: the bag is resealable.
The nuts are just slivers. I wouldn't have minded bigger almond chunks and more of them. Some of the granola clusters are too big. Also, canola oil is the third ingredient—even higher than rice flour. It's "expeller pressed canola oil" if that makes a difference. I'll let you tell me if it does or not.
$3.79 for the eight serving bag. I could be wrong, but I think this product was only $3.29 a couple years back. Also, Sonia thinks it tasted more like vanilla before this most recent repackaging. Oh well. Seven and a half out of ten stars from me for Trader Joe's Just the Clusters Vanilla Almond Granola. Seven out of ten from the beautiful wifey.
Bottom line: 7.25 out of 10.
It is so interesting that you should mention the ingredients and "health" qualities of this item. On a recent trip to Trader Joe's I used my Yuka app to scan some of the granolas. I was astonished to find that not all are in the green. Ones like this one, the Grainless granola, peanut butter chocolate granola, and toasted coconut granola all received poor scores - mostly for things like you were mentioning, the oils. There were some that received good ratings. These included the peanut butter protein granola, very berry granola and (interestingly) chocolate coffee granola. I don't live or die by the Yuka app or another one I have called BobbyApproved, but it's always fascinating to get their "health" take on items. By the way, I personally love the chocolate coffee granola.
ReplyDeleteInteresting! I haven't heard of those apps. As far as oils are concerned, I'm mostly just making observations and not hardline health claims.
DeleteI think we have that chocolate coffee granola on deck for a review. We did a caramel coffee granola some years back, but it didn't stick around long if memory serves correctly.