Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else. ~Judy Garland
A lot of artisanal small-batch granola has hit the market in the past few years, starting with Bear Naked (which is now huge and owned by Kellogg) and continuing on to newer brands like Early Bird Granola. Granola seems to fall in two camps: the kind that comes in big clusters, and the flakey unclustered kind. My earliest granola experiences were at the school breakfast buffet where we had huge rocks of granola, so my preference is for clusters.
When the Boulder-based company Snackle Mouth offered to send me their crunchy granola, I said sure. The first thing I did when I received their package was look at the ingredients. It's a fairly clean list, with blue agave and brown rice syrup as sweeteners instead of sugar, and canola oil which I assume is a binder. There is also the mysterious ingredient, "Natural Flavors."
To me, a sweetener is a sweetener, and I don't have a problem with sugar - it's best to limit your intake of ANY sweetener. I'd rather have granola without any sweeteners.
Snackle Mouth is indeed very crunchy. It's got a nice dosage of fat per serving, about 8 grams in the Almond Berry flavor, so it is a satisfying snack with great crunch appeal. The ingredients are real, so is supplies 12% of fiber and 4 grams of protein in Almond Berry. They aren't quite as cruncy as Grape Nuts, but that is a good thing in granola.
I tried three flavors - Almond Berry, Almond Pecan Maple and Peanut Cranberry. My favorite was Peanut Cranberry since I'm partial to both peanuts, almonds (also in this flavor) and cranberries. Snackle Mouth is also good with milk as cereal.
Bottom Line: Snackle Mouth satisfies both hunger and crunch lovers with a pretty good list of real ingredients. Though if you are hungry for a crunchy snack, MindfulEats recommends an apple and a handful of nuts.
What I ate: two lattes, 1 orange, 1 grapefruit, whole wheat spaghetti, grass fed beef bolognese sauce, tea, 6 Almond Rocas, 1 green tea mochi ice cream, brown rice, brusell sprouts, tempeh 2 dark chocolate squares, hot chocolate
Exercise: jogges 4 miles, 120 situps, 6 push-ups, 50 tricep pushups, 3 backbends
