Fibre One: Life Is Too Short For This Brownie

Brownie Basics

This brownie bills itself as a ‘healthy snack’, high in fibre and low in calories (90 of them to be precise). It looks like it will be…disappointing.

Brownie Backstory

So there’s this advert on the television for these things. A series of women stare longingly at various delicious looking desserts while a parodic version of ‘Total Eclipse Of The Heart’ plays. For example: “Every now and then I get a little bit tired of craving something that I can’t have.” Obviously it’s all women in the advert. TV tells us that all women must be dieting all the time while no men ever are.

Eventually one of the women is saved by seeing a box of Fibre One brownies in a supermarket. “TURN AROUND, BARBARAAAAAAA” sings some off-screen man as she accidentally lets her trolley go and stares open-mouthed at them. “I’VE FINALLY FOUND THE RIGHT SNAAAAACK”, the song screams. It’s ok for her to eat this brownie, because it is only 90 calories.

I’ve got a lot of issues with this. Dieting sometimes is fine. Being aware of what you eat and ensuring that you lead a healthy lifestyle is fine. I’m not sold on the idea that “Oh, I can’t eat brownies, but I can eat this 90-calorie brownie”. Here’s my hot take on this: EAT A DAMN BROWNIE. If you’re counting calories and it throws you out of whack, then do some exercise to balance it out. Or just adjust your diet around the occasional brownie. Or just eat the damn brownie and don’t sweat it so much. Life is short. Too short for everything to be about calorie counts and fibre levels.

And let’s be honest, this doesn’t look like it’s any substitute for a good brownie. It looks fake, artificial and unpleasant. Is anyone expecting it to be anything else? Some brownies are, say, 400-odd calories, and some are 90. If it was actually possible for a 90-calorie brownie to be as good as a 400-calorie brownie, wouldn’t everyone be making the 90-calorie versions? To say nothing of the fact that this brownie is frankly tiny. I like to take cross-sectional pictures of brownies (because that’s often a good insight into the brownie base) but as you can maybe see from above, this brownie is so flat there’s basically no cross-section. Overall, it seems like this brownie is not going to really solve Barbara’s cravings.

Nonetheless the proof of the brownie is in the eating (it’s a real phrase, no further questions) so let’s eat it and find out.

Brownie Points

Taste: The box is very proud about its ‘chocolate flavour fudge pieces (11%)’ and its ‘chocolate flavour drizzle (7%)’. And it tastes as fake as you’d think, from this description. 2/10

Texture: It’s largely stale and dry and I don’t get any real sense of the fudge pieces, but the drizzle slightly improves it. 3/10

Presentation: The squares are tiny, which seems a bit cheeky because all the advertising seems designed to hide their size. Inside the cardboard box of five brownies, each is individually wrapped in a plastic wrapper (why?) which is about twice as large as it needs to be for the brownie inside (why??). I do admittedly sort of like the drizzle effect on the squares, though. 1/5

Value: £2.90 for the box of 5. Here’s what’s bugging me. That’s what the Ole & Steen brownie cost. Given how small these brownies are, the five of them together are possibly similarly sized to that brownie, certainly not much larger. Five lots of 50 calories is also comparable to a whole actual brownie. So it would seem that the only advantage that these brownies have over an actual delicious brownie are that this is conveniently divided into five pieces, and each is shaped so that it might trick you into thinking you’re eating a whole brownie when you’re not. What is the point in this brownie? What on Earth is its value?? Apparently, nothing. 0/10

Fudge Factor: This brownie’s about as bad as I expected. I didn’t actually throw these away, so it has that over the Sainsbury’s brownies, but that might just be because the amount of brownie volume I had to wade through was much less. Anyway, boo these brownies for failing to grasp the purpose of brownies. -1/5

The Sad Conclusion: 5

Should I Buy And Eat This Brownie?

Ha no. I can’t conceive of a path to better health that includes eating these brownies. I think I’d rather die of diabetes or heart disease.

Closing Thought

In (checks clock) eight hours at time of writing, I will be on a plane on my way to Crete. I wonder if there are any brownies in Greece?