Kashi’s New Granola Swerves The Protein Trend

Protein continues its unstoppable march to be present in every single one of your foods, and breakfast cereal is a pretty easy win. In the last few years (it’s a loooong trend), protein’s been showing up more and more in cereals and granolas from the likes of Cheerios, Special K, and, the subject of this here article, Kashi. Earlier this year, we rated the brand’s Peanut Butter Crunch Protein + Fiber as one of our favorite protein cereals, and its regular Go Crunch, with nine grams of protein per serving, was one of the best cereals we tasted, full stop. 

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Kashi, though, has its sights set on something else with its new release: Your gut health. Let’s discuss.

Kashi Gut Health Granola

Last week, Kashi announced the release of its new Gut Health Granola, a cereal that combines high levels of fiber, prebiotics, and gut-activated cultures. Coming in Blueberry Almond and Chocolate Almond Butter flavors, each serving contains nine grams of fiber, five grams of prebiotics (coming from chicory root fiber), and a bunch of Bacillus subtilis DE111, a probiotic strain that helps to balance gut flora and improve the health of your bowel movements. 

Anyone familiar with Kashi will know that fiber’s been its thing (well, one of its things) for a while, so the higher fiber content here probably won’t come as a huge surprise. The brand earned the third and second places, respectively, on our list of the best fiber cereals back in 2024. However, the prebiotics and probiotics here feel like a pleasant commitment to a fiber-forward direction – and Kashi hopes that this new granola will take some of the complication out of getting foods that are good for your gut into your diet.

The Year Of The Gut?

Kashi’s not the only food manufacturer leaning into probiotics and gut health this year. A couple of months back, Welch’s Fruit Snacks dropped its new Probiotic Yogofruits, another product that seeks to make ingesting gut-friendly foods as simple as possible, and we’ve seen a bunch of other brands follow suit. To be honest, this feels like a welcome development, particularly in the face of all that protein. Nutritionists have repeatedly pointed out that it’s fiber, not protein, that we need to be more actively conscious of in our diets — and let’s be honest, we can’t move for the latter nutrient at the moment. Is a sea change approaching? Probably not. But more, non-protein-centric options are always welcome.