Is Freeze-Dried Fruit ‘Cereal’ a Solid Breakfast? Here’s What a Dietitian Thinks

Find out if the viral TikTok trend has what it takes to be a well-rounded meal.

October 10, 2024

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No matter how old you are, odds are you’ll always have a special place in your heart for cereal. As kids, it gave us all the energy we needed to run around for hours, and its convenience undoubtedly made our parents’ lives a little easier too. That quick-to-the-table factor is still a boon even now that we’re all grown up—there’s just nothing easier to make before a busy day. But when we do indulge in the nostalgic favorite, many of us find that it no longer fills us up quite as well as it did when we were young.

The desire for a quick breakfast—one that’s as tasty and crunchy as the breakfast bowls of your youth—is still there, though, and a number of so-called “healthier” substitutes have arisen to fill the demand. The latest one making the rounds on social media involves tossing several kinds of freeze-dried fruit into a bowl, topping the whole thing with milk (or a dairy alternative), and spooning it up just like you would some Fruit Loops. The creators swear it does a good job of replicating your go-to childhood breakfast—minus the crash you might get from all the added sugar in the original version.

Sure, all those colorful bowls and ASMR crunching noises are tempting, but I had some questions before I gave it a shot myself. Namely, is this idea really all that healthier than a normal bowl of cereal—and does it actually taste just as good?

In terms of nutrition, Cara Harbstreet, MS, RD, of Street Smart Nutrition, tells SELF that this isn’t the worst healthy food trend she’s seen. Because freeze-drying doesn’t use any heat, it preserves all the nutrients that you’d normally find in fresh fruit, especially ones like heat-sensitive vitamin C, she explains. That being said, she says there are a few reasons why she’d still hesitate to recommend this hack as a full-on breakfast replacement.

For starters, many cereals are fortified with nutrients that aren’t always in abundance in fruit, like iron, folate, and protein. Sure, you may get more fiber from the freeze-dried fruit, but still fall short in those other categories.

So let’s see how freeze-dried strawberries stack up against a cereal with a similar flavor profile, like Froot Loops. A single 39 gram serving of the traditional cereal (roughly one and one-third cups) contains 2 grams of both protein and fiber, 4.5 milligrams of iron, and 80 micrograms of folate. By contrast, there’s 1 gram of protein, 3 milligrams of iron, and no folate in almost the same amount of freeze-dried strawberries—but a whopping 7 grams of fiber.

There’s also the cost factor, which can be a big barrier to entry for a trend like this, says Harbstreet. Freeze-dried fruit isn’t exactly cheap (one 1.2-ounce bag at Trader Joe’s is almost $3, and that’s a whole serving if you’re attempting to eat it in cereal form). Plus, you might need more than one serving to really feel full from the hack. On the flip side, a box of Froot Loops at Walmart costs less than $4 and contains six servings per box. “I’m certainly not discouraging you from trying to add fruit in any form, but for most people this is probably a cost-prohibitive strategy,” she says.

The takeaway? Don’t write off this trend completely, but don’t expect it to be a filling—or cost-effective—breakfast alternative either. Instead, consider it a snack. Or maybe even better, pick and choose parts of the trends to get the most out of it without breaking the bank, Harbstreet says. For instance: Simply add some freeze-dried fruit to real-deal cereal to get more fiber rather than making it your entire bowl. Or eat it with a high-protein staple like yogurt.

With Harbstreet’s tentative stamp of approval, I decided to try out this trend as a snack, as something sweet after my protein-rich but admittedly fiberless meal. I figured it’d be a good way to help me get a bit more of that essential nutrient.

Audrey Bruno

I’m going to be honest: I don’t normally go for health food trends because they usually don’t taste as good and are only marginally (or not at all) more nutritious. But I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised by this hack. I combined three kinds of freeze-dried fruit—mango, blueberries, and strawberries—and was surprised at how sweet, crunchy, and delightful it ended up being. All in all, not a far cry from the bowls of sugary cereal I know and love.

One word of advice: Use caution when picking your fruit, because some—like the blueberries—will tint your whole mouth dark purple, like it did to mine. But, as long as you have nowhere to be or any important meetings to attend, dig in with abandon. It’s what your inner child would want.