McDonald's Oatmeal Review

McDonald's introduced Fruit and Maple Oatmeal to its menu in January 2011, and several of my friends made a point to tell me. You see, I'm an oatmeal lover- so they knew I would be excited at the news. I was even more excited to find that McDonald's offers oatmeal all day.

I went at lunchtime and ordered the Fruit and Maple Oatmeal. I don't normally put fruit in my oatmeal, so I was a little skeptical about that part, but maple and brown sugar is my absolute favorite flavor of instant oatmeal, so that part sounded good.

When I got the oatmeal the first thing I wanted to do was try the fruit. As it turns out, the little apple chunks were absolutely delicious! They were so sweet it made me wonder if they were artificially sweetened. The raisins were really good- nice and plump and chewy, and I love that they used regular raisins and golden raisins. There were also dried cranberries in there, but they didn't seem particularly flavorful to me.

According to the McDonald's website, their Fruit and Maple Oatmeal has "two servings of whole grains, and about a half cup of fruit and is rich in vitamin C". (So far, so good!) One order has 280 calories, 4 g of fat (6% DV), 1.5 g saturated fat (8% DV), 5 g of cholesterol (2%), 135 mg sodium (6% DV), 57 g carbs (19% DV) with 5 g dietary fiber (20% DV) and 31 g sugar, finishing with 5 g protein (10%).

Compared to other foods offered at McDonald's, the oatmeal is pretty darn healthy. But the real question is: how does it taste? Like I said, the fruit was surprisingly good. (I'd go say far as to say the fruit was scrumptious!) The oatmeal wasn't quite as impressive, though. It had a good consistency- not too thick, not too runny; not too chewy, not too mushy- but it lacked a good, hearty flavor that I expect from oatmeal. In other words, the oatmeal itself was bland. I didn't taste the maple in it at all. It was only after I visited the McDonald's website that I found it's supposed to have brown sugar in it. I didn't taste any brown sugar.

As a healthy menu choice at McDonald's, Fruit and Maple Oatmeal gets five stars. As an affordable prepared food for busy days, it get five stars. And as a filling meal, it gets five stars. But.... based on flavor alone, it gets three stars. Frankly, I've had better oatmeal from a Quaker Oats instant package. But still, I wouldn't write off McDonald's Fruit and Maple Oatmeal completely. I would never go to McDonald's specifically to get it, but if we were at McDonald's I would order it again.

Overall, McDonald's Fruit and Maple Oatmeal rates four out of five stars.

http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/promotions/oatmeal.html
http://www.dietfacts.com/html/nutrition-facts/mcdonalds-maple-brown-sugar-oatmeal-topped-with-apples63549.htm