Ha, Apri—err, I mean, January Fools!
Either way, I totally got ya, didn’t I? I bet when you saw General Mills’ lineup of new 2022 cereals hitting shelves this month, you thought I’d spring right for the exciting ones: most likely the golden twinkling CinnaGraham Crunch, or possibly the bold Reese’s Puffs Clusters Crunch. But no, instead I’m tearing into the new year with the less assuming, least outwardly exciting box of the bunch. The one whose whole branding is based around one of cereal’s tiredest tropes—that is, the proposed benefit of a making you feel more full using whole grains and other assorted brown stuff. I mean, just look at that bowl on the box: it all kinda warps together like a Magic Eye puzzle if you stare at it too long.
Of course, the second you look beyond the bland branding (blanding), Plentifull’s true promise shines through. With the promise of peanut butter coated flakes, you know you’re in for a cereal that isn’t so much filling in the sheer gut-leadening, bland and Grape-Nutsian sense of the word, but rather in the “candy bar filling” sense of a cereal using dense, rich ingredients to make it feel more like a full meal. That meal being dessert. Continue reading