What I would GIVE to eat a bowl of cinnamon toast crunch! No matter the time of day, I always crave cereal. It’s the perfect meal to have for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack – literally anything. The sound of the crunch with the taste of the sweetness is just amazing. Unfortunately, I had to adapt to a lifestyle where I couldn’t eat a whole bowl of sugar whenever I wanted and this made me so upset – until I discovered Keto friendly cereal.
Just a quick run down of the Keto Diet: Keto is a high fat, adequate protein, low carb diet that drives your body into a process called ketosis and ends up burning your fats rather than carbohydrates. It is a very healthy lifestyle, but can be incredibly difficult to maintain (and pricey at times).
Recently, I have been trying to find Keto friendly foods that don’t taste like straight cardboard, and stumbled upon two products: Catalina Crunch and Magic Spoon – two Keto friendly cereals that try to mimic cinnamon toast crunch. Emphasis on “try to”… I decided to give them both a try and here is my review.
CATALINA CRUNCH
When I tell you I am addicted to this stuff…I finished a whole bag in two days.
Although you can buy this on Amazon, Whole Foods recently started stocking up on the product for around $10 a bag. The company has 6 different flavors, but my personal favorite is definitely the Cinnamon Toast.
The shape of the cereal comes in little squares and has a PHENOMENAL crunch. The hard texture of it is something I appreciated because sometimes when you’re eating “fake cereal”, the product just melts on your tongue and what’s the point of eating cereal if you aren’t going to have that nice chewing sensation?
The only down side to this product (apart from it being pricey – but then again, the Keto Diet is pretty expensive to maintain) is that you can taste the monk fruit. Monk fruit is similar to what Stevia is, so it acts as an artificial sweetener (that is branded as the healthiest of options) and personally the taste doesn’t bother me, but it’s definitely a particular liking. I personally can’t put this one down – a purchase that hurts my wallet but fulfills my cravings.
MAGIC SPOON
I bought this product online and the minimum amount that you can buy is a pack of four boxes. I had heard that this cereal was a good alternative and doesn’t spike your glucose, so I decided to drop the $40 and get a pack of four. The company has a variety of flavors: from cocoa, to frosted, to fruity – Magic Spoon has a couple of different options to pick from. I decided to go ahead and buy the cinnamon flavor.
Honestly, a lot of the reviews I read online said that it tasted exactly like cinnamon toast crunch, and boy are they so wrong. For this cereal, you genuinely have to enjoy the taste of straight cinnamon. There’s no real intent to sweeten the cereal – it’s basically little crunchy bits of cinnamon with a slight sweetness to it. Fortunately, I like the taste of cinnamon so I enjoyed the cereal – the crunch to it is nice, the shape is like little cheerios so it’s fun to eat, and the overall taste is pretty good but don’t expect to satisfy your sugary cereal craving. If you’re looking for a sweeter taste, I would definitely recommend the other flavors. I went ahead and tried my friend’s cocoa flavor, and loved the thick taste of the chocolate.
Overall, eating on a Keto friendly diet can be hard especially since you’re sacrificing some of your favorite foods. However, through trial and error, everyone finds their likes and dislikes to ultimately live a healthier lifestyle. For this battle (even though I actually like both cereal brands – their mission and taste are both what I am looking for), Catalina Crunch takes the crown. Give them a try…will you join me on this Keto adventure?