Cascadian Farm Organic Cinnamon Raisin Granola Review

My love for granola blossomed because of using it as a snack staple for hiking. More recently, I've been adding some to plain yogurt (which lately has been Cascade Fresh Plain Yogurt) to add more oomph. With numerous varieties now available, I'm always trying different brands and flavors. Cascadian Farm Organic Dark Chocolate Almond Granola Review got a pretty good review, so I decided to stick with that brand, but try a different variety. Enter, Cascadian Farms Organic Cinnamon Raisin Granola.

The picture on the front of the box depicts a bowl full of cereal, with raisins aplenty scattered throughout. Pouring up a bowl myself, I was disappointed to find that someone clearly placed those on the cereal in the picture, because there was only a few in my bowl. I poured some low-fat cow's milk over the cereal and took a bite. It tasted like cinnamon raisin bread! Seriously! The puffed rice is crisp and airy, the oats are chewy and earthy, but unfortunately, the raisins are tough and leathery. While at first I was disappointed at the lack of raisins, I quickly wished that this was just a cinnamon granola.

Cascadian Farm Organic Dark Chocolate Almond Granola Review

Cascadian Farm Organic Dark Chocolate Almond Granola was on sale at $3.00 for a 13.25 ounce box, and since the combination of dark chocolate and granola sounded really interesting, I decided to try it. Cascadian Farms says, "indulge your taste buds throughout the day with the delicious blend of organic whole grain oats, dark chocolate and almonds", and I was happy to comply.

I opened up my granola when I got home and poured a small bowl just to check out the ingredients first. I must say that I was disappointed by the amount of chocolate I saw - there was hardly any! The front of the box shows the granola to be studded with chocolate, but I really had to hunt for it to find that chocolate in my own bowl. I guess that might help the nutritionals, but it was sad for me given my affinity for dark chocolate.

Nevertheless, I dug in with my spoon sans milk at first. This granola was crunchy and wholesome, and surprisingly a tad on the sweet side - especially for a granola. The almonds were great, and the dark chocolate was tasty where I could find it. After a few spoonfuls of just the pure granola, I added milk and found that it was good that way too.

Cascadian Farm Organic Flax Right Pomegranate Raspberry Clusters Cereal Review

Walking down the cereal aisle is a must whenever I enter a grocery store, even if I am just running in for one thing. Call me a cereal-holic, but nothing gives me greater pleasure (when I'm in the store), than spotting a new variety. I've been known to slightly nudge people out of the way so I can get a closer look. When I see impressive nutritional stats, I know it's coming home with me, and that's how I ended up with Cascadian Farm Organic Flax Right Pomegranate Raspberry Clusters.

I was totally excited to pour myself a bowl splashed with some Silk Soymilk with Fiber, but when I scooped up a mouthful, I felt the beginning of some major disappointment coming my way. The clusters (composed primarily of pomegranate-raspberry juice, flax and oats) are about the size of a pea, which means they don't offer much flavor when masked by the larger Multigrain squares. The ratio of "clusters" to squares is about 1:3, which explains why the slight sweetness of the clusters is almost nonexistent. In fact, I don't taste much of a difference from a simple bowl of Cascadian Farm Multigrain Squares (which I really like). Furthermore, by the time I reached the end of my bowl, I had about 1/3 cup of cereal left, with no pea-sized clusters in site (I guess my ratio was a bit off but what's important it that I need more clusters)!