Product Review: Cili Bao Breakfast Meal

I was in Dis-Chem (my local pharmacy) today looking for a multi-vitamin, when I decided I would rather try a supplement shake and kill the vitamin and breakfast birds with one stone. My usual choice of shake is Ensure which I thought didn't contain dairy. I have to say the ingredients on those tins are printed in the smallest font known to man and I am nearly legally blind (literally), however today I spotted caseinates (milk protein derivatives) on the list. Sigh... put back on the shelf.

However I must have been having an excellent day on the eyesight front, because further down the health food aisle I spotted something I had not seen before: Cili Bao Breakfast meal. In the Cili Bao range was a soy milk powder so I had hope that their foods might be vegan. Lo and behold they were. There are quite a few products in the range, some of which contain a lot higher levels of nutrients than the Breakfast Meal, but the Breakfast Meal was the best priced (R78 for 14 servings).

Cili Bao is actually a type of fruit, of which I know nothing, however, it is apparently incredibly nutrient dense. All the Cili Bao products contain the fruit essence or crystals which is where they derive their high levels of vitamins and minerals from. The Breakfast Meal had about the same nutritional make up as the Ensure, so I decided to try it out.

According to the package you can make the breakfast meal by adding it to almost any kind of liquid. I made mine into porridge like consistency with soy milk. I found it to be extremely yummy. It was incredibly sweet which was perfect for me but may not suit some people. It is sorghum based (South Africans will know that taste as Maltabella) with a hint of fruitiness. There is no sugar of any kind in the ingredient list so it must be the fruit crystals which make it so sweet. They do give the breakdown of the sugars present and they are quite high.

I will definitely be eating this for breakfast for the next few months. It is a good source of protein, iron and B vitamins, as well as containing calcium. The nutritional value is even better when made with fortified soy milk. I don't mind the high sugar as it is natural and not added. My only complaint is that the fibre is far lower than I would have expected from a sorghum product. In fact only just over 1g per serving. I think I will add a teaspoon of oat bran in future to make up for that.

All in all I am very glad to have found this product as there is only so much oatmeal that a girl can eat in her lifetime!

Cili Bao Website