REVIEW: Kashi Cherry Vanilla Soft-Baked Cereal Bars

I've had good luck and bad luck with Kashi products. Their Banana Chocolate Chip Bar? Goood. Their Cherry Dark Chocolate Bar? Baaad. And these two snack bars are just an example of the black or white gradings Kashi tends to receive from me. What can I say? Their products are either hits or misses most of the time. Now I go on to try Kashi's Cherry Vanilla Soft-Baked Cereal Bar to see if its worthy of a goood grade or a baaad grade. One 7.2 oz. box containing six 1.2 oz. bars costs around $4.09.

One 35g bar contains 120 calories, 30 of them being from fat, 3g of total fat, 0g of saturated fat, 0g of trans fat, 1g of polyunsaturated fat, 1.5g of monounsaturated fat, 0mg of cholesterol, 100mg of sodium, 23g of total carbohydrates, 3g of dietary fiber, 9g of sugar, and 2g of protein.

This Kashi cereal bar isn't too far off in appearance from the more commercial NutriGrain, expect that the Kashi bar leaves out a strip of the cereal "shell", if you will, from the center to expose the dark red jam underneath. The tan shell is flecked with dots of vanilla bean.

My first thought after taking a bite out of this bar was, "Well, this sure smells like a NutriGrain, but it is awfully drier than one," which was true. This bar is much drier than you'd expect when eating a cereal bar, but keep in mind Kashi is quote-unquote "organic" and is supposed to be the healthier choice. By the end of the bar I found the level of dryness to pass as bearable. The grainy, cereal element of this bar is quite crumbly and soft, but also firm, and fairly sweet on its own. The thick, cherry-flavored jam is also sweet, with a smooth accent of vanilla extract. The cherry element of the jam is tart, sweet, natural in flavor, and all around tasty.

I've had a fair amount of time to mull on Kashi's Cherry Vanilla Soft-Baked Cereal Bar and eat a few more of them from the box, so I feel strong in my convictions that this is a reliable, tasty bar. I actually find it to taste BETTER than most NutriGrain Bars, and is probably one of the yummiest cereal bars I've had in a long time. Kashi's Cherry Vanilla Cereal Bar was a delightful surprise to my palette, and if I didn't- for whatever reason -purchase it again, I'd certainly try the other flavors, at the very least.

I'd give Kashi's Cherry Vanilla Soft-Baked Cereal Bars a 6.5/10.

Need other views from those who chewed? Crazy Food Dude also has this one reviewed.

What is YOUR favorite Kashi Cereal Bar? Let us know in the comments below!

Till' then, this has been RiRi ri-porting!