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.
Thankfully, Three Wishes Fruity Cereal does a good job of mitigating this dreadful fruitiness factor. Well, as good of a job as it can while still remaining true to its high-protein, low-sugar, grain- and gluten-free promise.
See, what Three Wishes Fruity Cereal gets right is its object of emulation. A lot of fruity cereals try to copy Fruity Pebbles or Froot Loops with an amalgamated mess of mixed berry tastes. This leads to an unfocused and forgettable cereal. Three Wishes Fruity Cereal, on the other hand, goes a distinctly Trixian route. Ignore all the other fruits doodled on the box, because Three Wishes Fruity Cereal tastes like lemons and oranges more than anything else. This is a positive, as citrus flavors are way better at masking base grains than mixed berry.
Make no mistake, though: if you go in expecting to be walloped in the tastebuds like Trix would, you’re going to be disappointed and orally unscathed. Three Wishes Fruity Cereal’s sweetness is only like a 2 out of 10 on the cloy-o-meter. In fact, the citrus nips back with a little tartness, making the overall profile even less sweet. And you can still taste the cereal base a bit at the end of every bite and in the aftertaste. It’s not an awful core taste—I like Three Wishes’ primary use of chickpea ingredients, and the garbanzos are far more neutral here than in something like Banza pasta, which carries a distinct nutty legume aftertaste. But still, I found myself hoping for a little more fruit punchiness.
You just know a cereal’s good when strawberry compote’s trickling out of your nose.
Milk only exacerbates this subtlety problem. Sure, it represses the chickpea and tapioca base a bit more, but the tempting Trixiness likewise washes away, like tears in unsweetened almond milk (which is basically water, let’s be honest here).
Overall, if you’re absolutely in the market for a super-healthy fruity cereal, Three Wishes, as a Diet Trix, is probably your best bet. But if your tastes can be persuaded, I still believe all their other flavored flavors—Honey, Cinnamon, and Cocoa—are better. I’m sure I’ll finish my box of Fruity Three Wishes anyway, if only so I stand a chance against Tony’s hooks and jabs. I hear he’s been training with Incineroar!
The Bowl: Fruity Three Wishes Cereal
The Breakdown: With its Trix-lite glaze and passable corn-less core, this is better than most healthy-healthy fruity cereals, but not as strong as the brand’s more indulgent offerings.
The Bottom Line: 5 suplexing GRRR-applers out of 10