Gluten-Free Granola: Double-Chocolate-Crunch by Enjoy Life

PRODUCT REVIEW
Gluten-Free Granola
Double-Chocolate-Crunch by Enjoy Life

I definitely love chocolate, and with a product-name that includes the phrase "double chocolate", Enjoy Life got my attention quickly with their latest flavor of nut-free and gluten-free granola: Double Chocolate Crunch. What makes it a "double" is the addition of mini semi-sweet chocolate chips that complement the cocoa throughout the granola.

Taste and Texture

Here is a close-up picture that reveals the texture of the double-chocolate gluten-free granola, with the most visible component being the brown-rice flakes that make up the bulk of the product; you can also perhaps make out the mini-chocolate-chips in there too.


As you may gather from the texture demonstrated in the picture, this granola delivers a rather crunchy and hearty consistency — between the brown rice flakes and the other complementary ingredients of rice crisps, inulin (ground chicory root: for fiber), and ground flaxseed, there is plenty of mouth-presence to satisfy those of us that want our granola to have some discernible chunks / clusters in it.  I found it quite satisfying and appealing to my senses.

Nutrition Information

Between the rice bran (in the gluten-free rice crisps) and the additional inulin, Enjoy Life has delivered 4-grams of fiber per 1/2cup serving.  Not bad.  But, there are also 11-grams of sugars from the the components containing evaporated cane juice, brown rice syrup, raisin juice concentrate, and honey.  This made for a sweetness that many people may enjoy a lot, but a sweetness which I found to be perhaps 50% more than required; I rarely consume sweeter cereals, which is why I labeled this granola a "snack food" as much as a cereal for my personal consumption habits.  Total carbohydrates (carbs) come in at 36-grams per 1/2-cup serving, total fats are 4g (2g saturated; 0g cholesterol) and total protein is 3g/serving.

Enjoy life has bumped-up the vitamins and minerals in their gluten-free granola by adding some magnesium, iron, B1, B3, B5, B6, and Zinc, which  is nice for those wishing to get a bit of a vitamin-boost from their morning cereal (and, like most main-stream gluten-containing cereals theses days also offer).  Where Enjoy-Life also beats many main-stream cereals (aside from being wheat-free, gluten-free, diary-free, nut-free, soy-free) is in the low-sodium level too (only 40mg/serving), which is quite nice for anyone on a low-salt/low-sodium diet.

Other Observations

My next observation has little to do with the quality of their gluten-free granola or other products, but rather with the fact that the Enjoy Life's website is essentially useless unless you have Adobe Flash Player installed.  Although I have Flash Player for Google Chrome (my primary browser), I do not have it installed for Internet Explorer, and the Enjoy Life website is just awful in the non-Flash mode as it continually tries to install Flash instead of offering some fall-back HTML-only version of the site.  I really wonder how their site performs on mobile devices or other non-Flash-capable devices.

PAST REVIEWS
It has been quite a while since I last reviewed any Enjoy-Life products (in fact, I think it was 2007).  Here are some links to those earlier reviews:

• Enjoy-Life Gluten-Free Cinnamon-Crunch Granola Review (link) : a 2007 review
• Enjoy-Life Gluten-Free Products Reviewed (link) : Chocolate Chips, Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies, Coco-Loco Bars from 2007
• Enjoy-Life Gluten-Free Cranapple-Crunch and Very-Berry Granola Reviews (link) : also 2007

Those early reviews may or may not be that helpful anymore, as I would expect at least some aspects of the products and their gluten-free recipes / formulations have changed since then, but feel free to check our what I observed then and compare.

Gluten-Free Granola: Price / Cost

As many of you already know, gluten-free cereals tend to cost much more than their non-GF counterparts, though with some selective shopping around, sometimes we can minimize the cost-differential.

So far, the best price I have seen for this Enjoy-Life double-chocolate-crunch granola is for a THREE-PACK (of 12-ounce bags) at Amazon.com for $13.06 (current price), bringing the per-bag price down to $4.35 (which equates to 36-cents/ounce or $5.80/pound).

I personally find nearly all cereal ridiculously overpriced these days (like most "finished products"), as I just can not understand how such dirt-cheap constituent-components (like brown rice flakes) and evaporated cane juice can end up costing so much by the time they are combined and sold at retail as cereal.  I do understand that certified gluten-free ingredients (or the process of certifying ingredients and/or the finished product as gluten-free) can add to the cost, but it is still a bit troubling when one considers that at bulk-price levels on the commodities-market, rice is well under 50-cents/pound when quoted at per-metric-ton rates.  But, unless you have a way to make your own gluten-free granola and save a lot of money, this is the best price I have yet observed for the double-chocolate variety reviewed herein.

Gluten-Free Product-Review Summary

The combination of cocoa and chocolate-chips really delivers on the "double chocolate" promise advertised on the bag, and if you enjoy chocolate as much as I do, you will undoubtedly find this granola perfect for both a breakfast item and a snack food.  I give this gluten-free granola a big thumbs-up, though I found it just a *bit* sweeter than I would have preferred personally.