Monthly Archives: March 2017

News: Mocha Crunch Cereal Coming Soon from General Mills!

Chocolate Mocha Crunch Cereal

(Image via General Mills and Influenster)

(Update: We reviewed Mocha Crunch Cereal!)

Forget Honey Nut Cheerios: this is the kind of buzz I want on my breakfast table.

I’ve been waiting for a mainstream coffee cereal since I first precociously sipped my grandpa’s Maxwell House at age 9, and now General Mills is making that dream a reality with Mocha Crunch Cereal. Sure, Coffee Cereal exists in its own delicious niche, but ever since I ideated “CappucinOs” for a class project (and permanently answered the question, “what’s wrong with that Dan kid?”), my ideal coffee cereal has been a creamy, milky, and maybe even toffee-y bowl of sweetness.

Hot off the crumbling pastry heels of Chocolate Mocha Pop-Tarts, General Mills is ready to brew a retailiatory strike with a teal box full of cocoa coffee discs. They appear to have the same chip-less Cookie Crisp shape of Thin Mints Cereal, so I hope Mocha Crunch’s pieces have the same delightfully powdered texture, too.

And let’s hope they contain enough real caffeine to make a Girl Scout earn her “Xtreme Tree Climbing” merit badge.

There’s no official word on when we’ll be able to sip this chocolate bean-y breakfast blend (with a side of Cinnamon Toast Crunch to dip into the endmilk, of course), but our thanks go to our pal The Junk Food Aisle for breaking the fresh-brewed news. Now to find the perfect mug to eat this stuff out of.

I’ll be sure to leave room for cream.

Spooned & Spotted (Israel): Nestlé CRUNCH Cereal

https://www.instagram.com/p/BR_rmSjFQ8F/?taken-by=munchiebunchie

When Aaron Carter covered “I Want Candy” back in 2000, I wonder how serious he really was about craving Milky Ways, Snickers, and Three Musketeers for three meals a day. Serious enough to book an intercontinental flight just to crunch CRUNCH bars for breakfast?

If so, Mr. Carter better renew that passport, because believe it or not, a breakfast cereal based on Nestlé’s famous chocolate-coated crisp rice bar does exist—but not in America. This cereal does justice to its namesake candy bar by clustering puffed cocoa rice into clusters and flavoring it with cocoa liquor (a.k.a. cocoa mass, which sounds like the best religious ceremony ever), but it only does so in Europe and the Middle East—including Israel, where our Instagram friend Munchiebunchie got the above box.

My apologies to any non-American readers who are shaking their heads at me six time zones away who see CRUNCH Cereal as a commonplace breakfast option; here in the U.S., we’re starving for a fresh candy cereal, between the Lion Cereal we’ll never get and the Jolly Rancher Pop-Tarts we’re not sure we even want.

Maybe Krackel will throw us a bone on this one.

So if you have eaten Nestlé CRUNCH Cereal, please tell me how it is below so I can live vicariously through your taste buds. I hope it tastes as much chocolate corn-off-the-cob as it looks. And if you have a cool foreign or domestic cereal photo of your own (big thanks to Munchiebunchie!), spoon it over to cerealously.net@gmail.com for a chance to see it on the site.

Review: Trader Joe’s Tart Cherry, Chia and Pumpkin Seed Oatmeal

Trader Joe's Cherry, Chia and Pumpkin Seed Oatmeal Cup

Consider the humble cherry.

Long-overshadowed by strawberry, the people’s champion, and grape, its cheaper taste analogue, cherry has been trapped in a breakfast aisle pitfall for decades. Sure, there’s Frute Brute, who’s currently trapped in General Mills’s monster mausoleum  for…well…ever, probably. And there are Cherry Pop-Tarts, who go unnoticed like the rosy-cheeked nerd girl in every teen movie whose sweetness is only revealed to the one boy brave enough to give her a chance (my Pop-Tart metaphors are complex).

But other than those two and a few obscure health cereals, cherry is very rarely seen as breakfast fare. Which is unfair, because any fruit that tops sundaes and acts as the Kool-Aid Man’s lifeblood deserves a spot at my table.

Thankfully, Trader Joe—a longtime liberator of unsung and under-appreciated flavors—is giving cherry a shot in his latest instant oatmeal cup. This is the same Joseph who once one-upped Pop-Tarts by cramming both cherry and pomegranate into a single toaster pastry,  a mad feat I haven’t seen since 1998, when The Undertaker threw Mankind off Hell In A Cell, sending him plummeting 16ft through an announcer’s table.

Staying true to his squirrelly status as “the Uncle Joey of grocery stores,” Trader Joe also stuffed chia and pumpkin seeds into this plastic oat cylinder. Let’s celebrate the dawn of spring by watching this one blossom in the microwave. Continue reading

News: Birthday Cake Froot Loops is Coming Soon to Canada

https://www.instagram.com/p/BR4ewPhAuEL/?taken-by=junkfoodcanada

 

(Update: We reviewed Birthday Cake Froot Loops!)

And just like that, Canada takes the lead!

I swear, 2017 so far has just been a back-and-forth battle between the U.S. and Canada to see who can release the coolest cereal exclusives. To name just a few of this crunchy conflict’s top warriors, banana bread and marshmallowy oatmeal have led Team Canada, while America’s platoon has been led by cookies, cookies, and, uh…more cookies.

It’s been a real war of nutrition attrition, with the only real winners being those who live along the border. But I think it’ll be hard for the States to retaliate against their northern neighbors’ latest cereal salvo: Birthday Cake Froot Loops, coming this summer to celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary.

The first known photo of this stuff comes courtesy of JunkFoodCanada on Instagram, who I can only assume acquired the picture through some top secret breakfast espionage involving bowl-touting drones and lasers reflected off spoons.

I have no idea what Birthday Cake Froot Loops will taste like—or why Kellogg’s Canada gave such a custardy vanilla flavor to a fruity cereal instead of, say, Frosted Flakes (they could’ve called them “Frosting Flakes!”)—but based on the color, I’m hoping it has a nice strawberry shortcake or cherry vanilla flavor.

My silent apologies to any kid who got a strawberry shortcake for his birthday. They may be good, but strawberry shortcakes will never hold a blubbery candle to Fudgie the Whale.

Review: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Granola Snack

Cinnamon Toast Crunch Granola Snack Bag

Take that, Canada!

You may get exclusive, drool-worthy Lucky Charms and Cinnamon Toast Crunch Oatmeals, but we here in the States are getting our own cereal-oat hybrid with new Honey Nut Cheerios and Cinnamon Toast Crunch granolas! In fact, this stuff is actually better than granola, because it’s a “Granola Snack!”

Just why is a Granola Snack better than plain ol’ oat clusters? Because with the word “Snack” in the name, I’m justified in munching through a whole bag anywhere, at any time, no matter how ridiculous I look.

Stuck in rush hour traffic and every radio station is playing commercials at the same time? Keep a Granola Snack in your cupholder.

Halfway through a stationary bicycle workout and need something to do with your hands? Double fist two Granola Snacks.

Grocery store ran out of stuffing mix and the turkey’s already in the oven? Spice up your bird with some cornbread and a Cinnamon Toast Crunch Granola Snack.

But okay, okay, I shouldn’t propose ruining Thanksgiving until I know this stuff’s actually good. Let’s go find a spin class and test it out. Continue reading

Review: St. Patrick’s Day Edition Lucky Charms with Green Clovers Cereal

St. Patrick's Day Lucky Charms with Green Clovers All Shamrocks Box

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Or as it’s known in the cereal community, “Unofficial But Pretty Much Official Lucky Charms Day!”

Because let’s be real here: if there were ever a thematically appropriate day to suck down leprechaun-endorsed oats and marshmallows by the beer stein-full, it’s St. Patrick’s Day.

As they always do, General Mills and Lucky Charms themselves have acknowledged the iconic cereal’s spiritual tie to this day of green by releasing an especially enviable Lucky Charms with Green Clovers! This cereal has been released before in a number of forms: 2017’s two-toned, minty fresh and earthen pine green shamrock marshmallows aren’t new, but previous years have also seen our four-leaved friends paired with sugary pots o’ gold and gold coins.

Who knows: maybe next year Lucky Charms will “Mix Up” these marshmallows like they did with the others, and we’ll finally get the black and neon pink marbits my edgy high school self always dreamt of.  Continue reading

Spooned & Spotted: Double Chocolate Krave with More Chocolate

Kellogg's Now More Chocolate Double Chocolate Krave Cereal

I usually hate the Internet’s tendency to call any thing within a thing “thing-ception.” I love DiCaprio as much as the next guy, but this is pretty much my generation’s equivalent of unnecessarily affixing “-gate” to even the mildest snafu or ill-timed social media post from a pizza company.

That said, I think I’m perfectly justified in calling Kellogg’s new More Chocolate Double Chocolate Krave “Chocolate-ception.” After all, Double Chocolate Krave was initially released as a more chocolaty version of original Krave. So a more chocolaty version of an already more chocolaty cereal seems so deliciously redundant that Xzibit is probably out there somewhere crying a single tear of joy without even knowing why.

Of course, that’s not going to stop me from plowing through boxes of this stuff—with added chocolate milk and Hershey’s syrup and sprinkles and a crumbled up cookie because why not? Even though I made fun of original More Chocolate Krave’s concept in my review, that stuff has completely ruined “regular chocolate” Krave for me. It just tastes so bland now without a plumper biscuit shell and roughly 20% more creamy chocolate filling.

So even though I look forward to losing myself in More Chocolate Double Chocolate Krave’s deepest limbo level, my heart still goes out to Krave S’Mores. See, Krave S’Mores isn’t mentioned on any of the new “More Chocolate” packaging, leading me to assume that it’s either being discontinued, or it’s just never getting this Doritos-esque x-treme chocolate infusion.

Or who knows, maybe Kellogg’s is still perfecting the technology for a “More Marshmallowy Krave S’Mores” cereal that stuffs a full Jet-Puffed mini ‘mallow into each piece.

Do you have a cool cereal photo to share (I spotted these at Meijer)? Feel free to pass it along on our submissions page, or just email us at cerealously.net@gmail.com. There’s a good chance your picture could be featured on the site.

Review: Bear Naked Chocolate Almond Clusters Cereal

Bear Naked Chocolate Almond Clusters Cereal Box

According to the box, Bear Naked Cereal’s new Chocolate Almond Clusters are “APPROVED BY BEARS.”

Personally, I’d like to see the National Bear Advisory Board’s citations on this, because like many mammals, bears can’t eat chocolate! The stuff contains theobromine, a chemical that’s toxic to our furry friends. So why, then, would the entire bear population sign off—in all capital letters, no less—on a cereal that contains enough cocoa to have them growling “oh no” as they cartoonishly grip their stomachs like Yogi Bear after stealing a picnic basket full of potato salad that’s been in the sun too long?

Are they trying to fatten us up with a calorie-dense breakfast so we taste better later? Are the bears just bad at reading contractual fine print? Or is this all just a pointlessly long-winded introduction I wrote to hide the fact that I spent $4 on this cereal?

The answer to all three is yes. Continue reading