Review: Fuel 10K Breakfast Solutions

By Barney

Okay, okay, okay. This is a mountain biking website, and here, you LUCKY people, is a review of breakfast cereal. What gives?

Well, Fuel10K are basically in the game of providing breakfast cereals with extra protein. The whole ethos of the 10K bit of their name is that, to become an Elite athlete, you need the following:

“…20 hours a week, 1000 hours a year, for 10 years, totalling 10,000(10K) hours as the acknowledged level of practice required to achieve excellence in a chosen field.”

Crikey. Well, that’s the theory at any rate. Essentially, it’s normal breakfast stuff, loaded with soy protein. It should therefore make you feel fuller for longer, give you more of the protein stuff to help with exercise early in the morning and overall be a healthy option for all you active-types. And if you still feel lethargic after all that protein, there’s a glowering eye on the box to make you feel guilty, and slightly threatened…

But over the last couple of months, I’ve been chowing down each breakfast with a bowl of Fuel10K of varying different stripes, and here is my verdict:

Protibricks

Very, very similar to Weetabix in look, but with what can only be described as square corners. WHAT BLASPHEMY IS THIS?? They don’t fit in the bowl as snugly as normal Weetabix do, but they taste exactly the same and disintegrate at the same rate too. And because of the protein you only need to eat two of them. I tried eating my usual 3 (when I Weetabix, I like to PROPERLY Weetabix) and wandered around like Bloaty McBalloon all morning. So stick to two, there’s a good reader.

Tasty? Like Weetabix. Very like Weetabix In fact, in a blind taste test, my 3 year old daughter was unable to distinguish the difference. She’s now in training for her first ultramarathon.

Protioats

These are apple and cinnamon flavoured porridge oats, in single serving sachets. You know the drill – tear off the top, pour the oats in your bowl, pour milk you’ve measured out using the  sachet in, stir and nuke in the microwave for a couple of minutes. Easy. Each sachet contains 5.3g of protein from soy and milk.

Tasty? Actually, not bad at all. Slightly too sweet, perhaps – I’d prefer a little less sweetness so I could adjust to suit, but very pleasant tasting. I usually feel full after porridge in any case, and the extra protein made me very content and possibly slightly snoozy (don’t tell the boss). But I’d happy chow down on this stuff on a regular basis. Yum.

Instant Protioats pots

Much the same as the Protioats above, except you just add water as they’ve already got powdered milk in. We had three flavours in the office, Forest Fruits; Honey, Nut and Raisin; and Golden Syrup. Once you’ve added water, you need to stir, and leave the pot for a couple of minutes.

Once this time is up, it’s still got a slightly watery texture, which thickens up into something more palatable once you’ve got stuck in. So for best results probably best to leave for three minutes, stirring occasionally.

Taste: The Golden Syrup one was a bit too sweet, but the honey, Nut and Raisin and Forest Fruits ones were delicious, despite the latter smelling a bit tart, if you see what I mean.

Chunky Granola

Impossible to distinguish from other chunky granolas in existence. Lots of fruit (good), good consistency, a variety of stuff stick together in a granola-esque style.

Taste: In common with practically all other granolas for me, it’s rather too sweet – so I like to mix mine with museli (I are philistine) and eat it with yoghurt, and (surprise surprise) it leaves you pleasantly full-feeling. If you like granola, it’s very good.

Liquid breakfast

We had three flavours of these, banana, strawberry and vanilla. They’re sort of thin-milkshake thickness – they’re certainly not that horrible globular sort of milkshake texture that a lot of them can be; you could arguably eat them with cereal, but…

Taste: SWEET. Lordy lord these are sweet. Pleasantly fruity for the strawberry, the vanilla tastes nice and the banana tastes of chemicals like all pre-made banana milk-based drinks, but they’re so, so sweet. Again, I don’t think they’re particularly sweeter than any others on the market, but even so. To make sure it wasn’t just me I force-fed them to other members of the office, who agreed with me (putting it politely). Sweet McSweetsweet who lives in Sweetsville. If that’s your bag, then you’ll love these.

Overall:

Quite a pleasant experience. They’re not massively more expensive than regular cereal, they seemed to make me feel fuller for longer, and all in all they were a very palatable breakfast experience, apart perhaps from the Liquid Breakfasts, which made my pancreas whimper whenever I went near them. My favourite one was probably the Apple and Cinnamon Protioats – a fine breakfast porridge, boosted with protein. Can’t say it’s going to help me become an Elite athlete any time soon, but hey. A chap can dream.

More information and stockist details is available on their website here.

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Review Info

Barney Marsh

Barney Marsh takes the word ‘career’ literally, veering wildly across the road of his life, as thoroughly in control as a goldfish on the dashboard of a motorhome. He’s been, with varying degrees of success, a scientist, teacher, shop assistant, binman and, for one memorable day, a hospital laundry worker. These days, he’s a dad, husband, guitarist, and writer, also with varying degrees of success. He sometimes takes photographs. Some of them are acceptable. Occasionally he rides bikes to cast the rest of his life into sharp relief. Or just to ride through puddles. Sometimes he writes about them. Bikes, not puddles. He is a writer of rongs, a stealer of souls and a polisher of turds. He isn’t nearly as clever or as funny as he thinks he is.

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