Review: Three Wishes Cereal (Three Flavors!)

Three Wishes Grain-Free Cereal Review Boxes

More wishes. Boom, that was easy. And for the other two, bring back Waffle Crisp and the phrase “how’s tricks?” but don’t let the Trix Rabbit trademark it. Thanks.

Oh, wait, you weren’t asking, were you?

I wish you would’ve told me. But while my dreams of a colloquial world seen through amber-tinted glasses may have to wait, I’ll instead get the three wishes I’d never ask for out loud, but which will still appear under my Christmas tree between the socks and the Seinfeld box set (you can never have too many): a healthy cereal, that’s made by a small family, without the primary benefit being fiber content so high it’d give my small intestine a 1000mb/s connection.

Three Wishes is a newcomer in a specialty cereal niche that seeks to challenge the highs and lows of the low-sugar/low-everthing category. Created by the Wishingrad family, Three Wishes Cereal offers enough healthy specifics that it’s easier to quote them than type ’em out myself: “Grain free, plant based, vegan cereals made from chickpeas and pea protein,” with “More protein, less sugar, zero grains,” plus “No peanuts, no corn, no wheat, no rice, no dairy, no oats, and no soy. Our cereals are Kosher, Non-GMO and gluten-free certified.”

But hey, I’m just the taste test jockey, so I’ll be giving the three-flavor variety pack they kindly sent me a layman’s perspective. Please note that I am not on any restricted diets, so while I will be honest when clarifying my thoughts compared to sugary mainstream cereals, those looking for a nutritionist’s opinion can take mine with a grain of anything but actual grain. Let’s go! Continue reading

Spooned & Spotted: Kellogg’s Mer-Mazing Blue Raspberry Pop-Tarts

Kellogg's New Mer-Mazing Blue Raspberry Pop-Tarts

Alright, who’s in charge of Kellogg’s Adjectival Development Department? I just want to talk.

“Blueberrific” Pop-Tarts Crisps presented a pretty mild misdemeanor of negligent neologizing. But “Mer-Mazing”? That’s a high crime right up there with first-degree mer-der. I mean, I get it: Kellogg’s still had enough of the old Blue Raspberry Pop-Tart filling lying around—I have to imagine this stuff must radioactively decay at the rate of Chernobyl—and wanted to tie into the far-from-floundering mermaid trend. But would it’ve killed them to switch cryptids and debut wordplay so bad it’s good?

Bluepacabra Raspberry just rolls off the severed goat tongue!

In any case, The Tasty Turtle on Instagram is the first to spot these sea-dame snacks at Walmart. Big ups to them for sharing, but I will say this box art leaves me with more questions than answers. Like, why is this blue mermaid incapable of articulately holding a Pop-Tart? How can a Pop-Tart even survive underwater?

And is there another fishy lower body behind that giant Tart, or are we to believe this is a Mer-pastry, who’s sunk eternally to the bottom of the ocean for lack of proper hydrodynamics? The secrets of the deep will forever elude me.

News: Jack in the Box Fruity Cereal Milk Donut Holes

Jack in the Box Fruity Cereal Milk Donut Holes

The concept of doughnut holes will forever elude me. I mean, shouldn’t a serving of them just be empty? Can I return them, disgusted that I was served doughnut soil unearthed from the void that I paid for? Or should I just order a doughnut whole and buy a trowel?

Whatever, I need another bad fast food experience like I need a hole in my…uh…never mind.

The point is that Jack In The Box’s latest sweet treat takes their recently introduced doughnut holes from 🍩 to 100 (ce)real fast. Boasting a Not Fruity Pebbles—perhaps we should just call it Tooty Gravel? —coating so thick it’d make a packet of Fun Dip blush, these Fruity Cereal Milk Donut Holes are, well, Fruity Cereal Milk Donut Holes.

Unfortunately, I have no Jack In The Box locations near me, so until I can recruit a brunch of taste-testing helpers, I’ll have to live vicariously (and more freely vascular) through The Impulsive Buy’s review. After all, with an exterior sugar crust that looks like Funfetti-infused mold, what’s not to like?

Review: Cereal Time Cereals – Season 2!

Cereal Time with Gabe Fonseca Custom Cereal Boxes

Following the heralding Thanks of this past week, the season of giving can truly commence. I see no better way to start than by giving Gabe Fonseca’s latest generously and genuinely cereal-smithed quartet of Cereal Time breakfast OCs.

If you haven’t already subscribed to Cereal Time on YouTube, I recommend it. Not only is it a great retrospective counterpart to the modern crunchy journalism done here, but Gabe is dedicated enough to the cereal craft to have helped me out innumerable times with cereal knowledge and memorabilia.

And then after that, he has the nerve to still be nice enough to create fully realized cereal properties and send them as gifts! In comparison, I’m the kind of Grinch that would give burnt Grape-Nuts hunks for Christmas. Nor is it the first time: Gabe’s first wave of creations spanned everything from Gracelandic nutter ‘nanners to unfiltered gingerbread ore.

But can Gabe’s second take on bespoke breakfasts live up to his own standards, or will I sophomore slump face-first into my Piña ColadO’s? Allow me to pop, Ziploc and drop the facts on you. Continue reading

Review: Eggo Cereal (Homestyle Maple & Blueberry!)

Kellogg's New Eggo Cereal Review Boxes

Shhh! Here: take these black robes and put them on. Just don’t make a sound.

Tiptoe around the maple-scented candles and gather round the Ouija Griddle.

Tonight, we’re going to try and summon Waffle Crisp from the grave.

Zounds! Foiled by Beelzegrub himself again! No matter how many boxes of Chicken & Waffles Cereal I sacrifice, the necromancers who dwell in the cursed ruins of Postopia never hear my cries. But all is not lost: my prayers have reached the GRRR-oaning orifices of the Kellogg’s Leviathan, who have rewarded my syrupy blood magics with two boxes of Eggo Cereal. All it took was 10,000 people to discard their souls and retweet the demands of their branded overlords.

But nevertheless, Eggo Cereal is back after 7 years spent in eggs-in-purgatory—in both Maple and Blueberry, at that. But is it a worthy successor to our dearly departed dark amber lord? Allow me to retrieve my devilish pitch-spork and find out. Continue reading

News: Cheerios Oat Crunch – Oats ‘N Honey Cereal!

New Oats 'N Honey Cheerios Oat Crunch Cereal Box

Forget Star Wars and assorted superheroes: this is the most-anticipated sequel of 2019.

For many moons now, Cinnamon Cheerios Oat Crunch has been a sleeper hit amongst wizened breakfasters—in fact, it’s tied with Chocolate Peanut Butter for the title of my favorite Cheerio variety currently on shelves. With the kind of crispety crunchiness that could earn a lawsuit from Butterfinger, the Cheerios Oat Crunch lineage was practically begging for a breath of fresh heirs—the flavor potential is pretty much endless.

And now, over a year later, we’re finally getting a new taste. While it may be the most obvious variety the folks behind Honey Nut Cheerios could do, and while it’s pretty oat-vertly redundant in concept, the only thing I can fault Oats ‘N Honey Cheerios Oat Crunch for is its questionable use of a single apostrophized capital N in lieu of just about any other symbolic or textual conjuration of the word “and.”

(I get it, it’s technically grammatically acceptable, but flanking one side and not the other really has me peev’d.)

But hey, I break writing conventions by the bowlful, so I should stay excited for what may be 2019’s brightly honeyed dark horse—which has already been spotted on shelves!

Review: Hostess Twinkies Cereal

New Hostess Twinkies Cereal Review Box

There is a new cereal dichotomy blooming before our very tongues. If it comes to civil war, whose side will you be on?

The monolithic masses of the Kellogg’s Krusaders, their defenses made impenetrable and especially unpalatable by pounds of cushiony, bland corn ‘n’ sugar rings?

Or the silent-but-growing cabal of crunchily dusted Powdered Paladins, whose cereals are equally sweet, but, you know, actually good? 

Yeah, the choice is pretty obvious: with the Economically Chintzy Empire, we get Baby Sharks and celebratory man-birds. Neither is fit for battle—unless Kellogg’s brings in a Caticorn that’s actually equine in stature—against the trustiest, dustiest and most delectable division led by Powdered Donettes Cereal, with Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch and Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios as its right- and left-hand confidants. Honestly: if you did a cross-comparison between Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch and Kellogg’s Elf on the Shelf Sugar Cookie Cereal, you’d find a certain starry sugar-corn Rehash in the Trash, where it so boldly and brashly deserves to be.

I also know that overly flavor-powdered cereals can be divisive, as revealed by the internet’s violently split opinion on Frosted G.O.A.T.nettes—err, I mean Donettes, of course. So will this camp be pleased or feel sucker-punched by Twinkies Cereal, the latest dusted cake-crop in Hostess’ Cereal line? The answer is only a bowlful of crème larvae away: Continue reading

The Empty Bowl Episode Twenty-Two: Takin’ the Snack Cake

Whoosh

*crunch*

Whoosh

*crunch*

That’s it. That’s your mantra for today. No words needed: just a cereal bowl in hand and the ethereal ocean of milk that is The Empty Bowl’s lifeblood.

New to this astral breakfast sphere? Well then you and your tensest joints are in luck: The Empty Bowl is a meditative podcast about cereal and has often been called more calming than its subject matter has any right to be. But regardless, Justin and I are proud to host a show that quite literally puts our listeners to sleep. In this lull-vely episode, we take you on the slowest rapid-fire journey through the biggest cereal news and reviews of the past four weeks, from the incoming glory of Timbits Cereal to a sneak peek at my upcoming Eggo Cereal breakdown.

Still up late with a pair of screaming children/cats/houseplants? You can soothe the savage snake plant with twenty-one other episodes of cereal sleepiness at our Anchor hub, follow along on Twitter, or send in a listener question. We can’t discuss or respond to every email, but each one really pleases my begonias.