Obligatory disclaimer: I don’t eat a keto diet, so my palate is not hard-wired to seek out cereals like General Mills’ new Wonderworks trilogy. However, since it’s a new release from a big cereal manufacturer, I likewise feel obligated to give it a try. So while Wonderworks is in a totally different flav-o-sphere than the likes of Reese’s Puffs or Cocoa Puffs, I hope to at least give you an idea of which flavor is most worth a try.
Because, let’s make this clear, one of these three flavors is way better than the others. Continue reading →
Hope you’re ready to get buff enough to box Tony the Tiger—and fit enough to out-flex that show-off Special K logo—because I’ve got a whole bunch of healthy grown-up cereals backing up my review queue like an overdose of dietary fiber. I certainly don’t mind eating more sensible cereals—neither do my general practitioner and one-day descendants—but I’ll admit they’re a bit less fun to write about. If I can’t use this blog’s favorite adjective, buttery, then what’s the point?
That said, I’ve stated before how, out of all the Magic Spoons and Catalina Crunches of the world, Three Wishes is probably my favorite grown-up cereal brand—and certainly the most consistent. Besides their unflavored variant, which simply isn’t for me, the brand’s Honey, Cinnamon, and Cocoa versions are all solid and taste naturally sweet with few-to-none of the funky aftertastes that plague this grain-free cereal subgenre.
However, those flavors are small steps compared to the final frontier that is fruitiness. In my years of cereal journalism, I’ve found that fruitiness is far harder to deeply infuse into cereal pieces than something more straightforward, like cinnamon. As a result, the base cereal grain has a stronger palate presence, so if you’re eating a lazy, licensed corn-based fruit cereal, you’re gonna have a breakfast that’s as sucky as it is starchy. Continue reading →
Nine. From esotericism and enneagrams to The Beatles, it’s a number of power, a symbol of completion. But can nine ingredients alone complete an ambitious, expensive cereal?
Seriously, here are a couple other foreboding nines with an upside-down one in front: $6.99 for a box of LäraBar Cereal. I’m sure you, like me, are now thinking in your most Napoleon Dynamite-like inner voice, “that’s almost a dollar an ingredient!” When news first dropped about three LäraBar Cereals—Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip, Cashew Cookie, and Apple Pie here—I did not deem them worth driving off and paying for, especially since the similar-sounding and same-priced KIND Bar Cereals debuted to damning reviews.
But General Mills sent me a sampler of their early 2021 new releases, and it included today’s LäraBar Cereal flavor, so I might as well take it for a spoon. I am grateful, after all, even if the other two flavors sound more like my sugared bread & cocoa butter review fare.
Apple Pie LäraBar Cereal does indeed have only nine ingredients listed: whole grain oats, honey, rice, sunflower seeds, dried apples, almonds, coconut oil, sea salt, and cinnamon. Turns out, one of these ingredients ends up dominating 90% of Apple Pie LäraBar Cereal’s entire flavor profile. Can you guess which? Continue reading →
Here’s a little fun fact for all you Bible fans—something King James won’t tell you. The original forbidden fruit? Oh, it wasn’t an apple. Nope, wasn’t a grape, a fig, or even one of Eden’s finest snozzberries, either. It was just a big ol’ hunk of raw cookie dough, hanging off the tree.
So God was like, “Hey now, don’t eat those, you could get sick!” But the serpent goes, “C’moooon, salmonella occurs in fewer than 1 out of 20,000 eggs!” Long story short, God had to kick Adam and Eve out of the garden because they kept vomiting everywhere.
Harsh, maybe, but you ever smell a burning puke bush? Terrible for heavenly PR.
Since then, fear of cookie dough consequences has rarely stopped anyone from indulging in this original sin-full sweetness. In fact, this carnal compulsion is so deeply human that companies have innovated all kinds of ways to manufacture, safe, edible cookie dough. Including this newest entry into the Krave franchise of cereals: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Krave.
Now I love Krave (unlike many, I know), and I adore chocolate chip cookie dough, so my expectations for this cereal are higher than the maximum preheat temperature on my oven. Plus, this is the first explicitly chocolate chip cookie dough cereal—the underrated Keebler Cereal comes closest—but if anyone can pull it off, it would be the brilliant Kelloggian minds behind Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Pop-Tarts. Continue reading →
Puppets? I hate puppets. They’re unnatural, uncanny facsimiles of reality that populate my personal hell alongside dolls and ventriloquist dummies—this is all your fault, R.L. Stine!
But Muppets? Okay, they’re cute and therefore get a pass. In fact, I like to think that every valiant Muppet is the sworn blood enemy of creepy puppets everywhere. Go ahead, try and find me a Muppet without forward-facing eyes. These felted folks are predators. Therefore, it is my gratitude toward the Muppets that’s inspired me to review Sesame Street’s two new cereals.
Or at least, that’s how I internally justify being a grown man writing about a breakfast product for young children.
These cereals, 1-2-3 Berry and C is for Cinnamon, are both on shelves now. But are they worth throwing on your Cookie Monster snapback and driving down your street for?
But waffles? Well they’ve got a whole father, son, & holy ghost type deal going on. Not to mention whatever divine misfire spawned this unsettlingly charming abomination. Yes, waffles are king of the bowled maple breakfast game, probably because they’re a) the most iconic, b) easy to translate into aerated cereal form, and c) the word “waffle” is just infinitely more fun to say. Waffle. Waffle.
It’s like I’m a dog asking to be thrown a whiffle ball!
Since waffles are so (w)awfully awesome, it’s no surprise that we’re getting a third entry into the rebooted Eggo Cereal franchise. Joining Homestyle Maple and Blueberry, Eggo Chocolate Waffle Cereal seems a bit strange when compared to the obvious Chocolate Chip Waffle Cereal they could’ve done, though I suppose I shouldn’t complain that we’re getting 100% chocolate immersion with this one. Or should ? That remains to be seen, tasted, and casually belched as I pat my soon-to-be cereal-swollen stomach.
The only thing more legendary than Pokémon video games has gotta be Pokémon foodstuffs. As a collection-based ’90s series that turns kids crazed, it’s no surprise that the popping technicolor likes of Pokémon Pop-Tarts and Eggo Waffles were manufactured in droves—and it’s even less surprising that these nifty little snacks had huge nostalgic impacts. In fact, my own personal obscure favorites when growing up were the Pokémon lollipops my mom would buy me at the pharmacy, each of which came with a sticker.
Also among these licensed gems was the unforgettable Pokémon Cereal. With a solid Lucky Charms imitation as its base, Bowl Pal toys inside and the kind of glimmering box embossment that blows holographic Charizard out of the magma, Pokémon Cereal is a sentimental favorite of countless ’90s kids. And lest we forget the adorable pastel marshmallows—artist Tomodachi makes pins of them and I’ll take every opportunity to promote them.
In short, Pokémon Cereal (and by extension the newly marshmallowed Pokémon: The Movie 2000 Cereal) is a hard act to reboot, since the Pokémania of its Y2K heyday will never be matched. That’s probably why it’s taken two decades and a different brand licensee to get another cereal based on Pokémon. This one’s called Berry Bolt Pokémon Cereal, and while I think the box art is seriously lacking in both embossment and Poké-species diversity, I’m here to, without bias, choo-chew-choose you, Pikachu, to do battle in my bowl. Let’s go! Continue reading →
Well, it wasn’t very hard to know, but I still called Kellogg’s bluff.
See, when news first leaked (like a microwaved Honey Bun) that Kellogg’s and Little Debbie were teaming up to release Oatmeal Creme Pies Cereal, a rumored Cosmic Brownie companion was right there from the start.
This is the video that kicked everything off. Cosmic Brownies Cereal didn’t have box art at the time, so it was easier to overlook, but excitement over the fudgy, rainbow-sprinkled treat’s breakfast adaptation quickly dissolved when Kellogg’s formally announced OCP Cereal and OCP Cereal alone. I even pressed a PR contact about it, only to be told CBC “is not launching at this time.”
So hindsight is 20/20. Reading that, at the time, made me think the idea could’ve gotten axed. But reading it now, it’s so clear this was just PR speak for “we can’t talk about it, but if you read between the lines, yeah it’s coming.”
And let’s thank our lucky supernovas that Cosmic Brownies Cereal is real. Or, well, maybe we shouldn’t judge too soon, because, yes, the box is gorgeous and the rainbow-sprinkled brownie puffs look cute enough to eat at the same suprahuman rate I’d inhale a real Cosmic Brownie—but since the sprinkles likely won’t add much flavor, and the puffs sure don’t look filled Krave style, Cosmic Brownies Cereal will only be as strong as its most cocoa-powdered corn cuboid.
On one hand, General Mills’ similar Cocoa Puffs Brownie Crunch tasted identical to its spherical sibling, and as a result was kind of disappointing. At the same time, these brownie bites could be closer to the pillowy delights in Smorz Cereal. That would be wonderful!
But this is all speculation, and if I’ve learned one thing as a cereal blogger, it’s that we should expect the big corporations behind a cereal like this to cheap out on ingredient quality, like they so often do. That way, we’re either pleasantly surprised, or right.
