Oh Cap’n, my…wait a minute. Yarr, this isn’t Cap’n Crunch’s Crunchberries! This be Mom’s Best Cereals’ quasi-generic rendition of Crunchberries: Jungle Berry Crunch!
Shiver me timbers: how embarrassin’! This be just like the time I meant to fly a carrier pigeon to me scurvy mate with the message “ye bringin’ the grog on the ‘morrow, matey?” and accidentally flew it to me own ma, instead. I was grounded like a landlubber for fortnights.
Oh, aye, ye may be wonderin’ whyabouts I be blubberin’ like a pirate. Well let ol’ Danbeard spin ye a briny yarn about this here cereal of the sea. Jungle Berry Crunch may sound like it belongs in some scallywag’s Zimbabwean vacation, but it tastes like something a treacherous buccaneer like ol’ Jean LaFoote himself would find when marooned on a tropical island!
Since I’ll be spending tomorrow stuffing my face with hot dogs while watching others competitively stuff their faces with lemonade-soaked hot dogs, I figured I’d go light today by munching on Kellogg’s seasonal Limited Edition Red, White, and Blue Rice Krispies.
Truth be told, I’m glad the only Independence Day-themed cereal available this year (we’ve had Summer Berry Pebbles before) is this one. Since it tastes exactly the same as normal Rice Krispies, I can celebrate this most laid-back holiday of the year with an appropriately laid-back review.
So, uh, yeah: if you’ve had Rice Krispies, then these taste the same. No strawberry or blueberry taste—just neon colored food dye soaked into airy rice crisp niblets. They don’t really taste like anything, for that matter. If you grit your teeth and focus like Jimmy Neutron during a brain blast, there are notes of lingering toastiness, but few people are likely to eat these as a traditional cereal (whether dry or with mush-ifying milk) anyway.
These Red, White, and Blue Rice Krispies are destined to be bathed in butter and marshmallow for use in Rice Krispies Treats. I would have made some for the purposes of this review, but I’m saving all my butter and marshmallow fluff for use in my annual “Fourth Of July Butter ‘n’ ‘Mallow Slip’n Slide,” a tradition that I totally didn’t just invent to explain why I don’t have the ingredients for Rice Krispies Treats in my house.
My family just loves apostrophes, okay?
Instead, I made you this to make up for it. These Red, White, and Blue Rice Krispies lose points for not tasting especially fun and for not having enough red and blue pieces, but in the spirit of the holiday, I’ll give ’em a few extra just for being so darn festive. Don’t hesitate to buy a box if you ever wanted to make your own cereal American flag.
Or your own cereal flag for Australia, Cambodia, Chile, the Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, the Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, the Faroe Islands, France, Haiti, Iceland, North Korea, Laos, Liberia, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Nepal, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Russia, Samoa, Schleswig-Holstein, Serbia, Sint Maarten, Slovakia, Slovenia, Taiwan, Thailand, or United Kingdom, for that matter.
Uh, yeah, there are a lot of red, white, and blue flags.
Happy early Fourth of July, everyone: I hope all your fireworks Snap, Crackle, and Pop!
The Bowl: Rice Krispies with Red & Blue Krispies
The Breakdown: They’re Rice Krispies. They taste like Rice Krispies. Also there are red and blue ones. I want hot dogs.
The Bottom Line: 7.4 (see what I did there?) hot dog bun-shaped Rice Krispies Treats out of 10
(Quick Nutrition Facts: 120 calories, 0 grams of fiber, 4 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein per 1 1/4 cup serving)
These are not the discontinued Frosted Chocolate Vanilla Creme Pop-Tarts you once knew and loved. No: these are Frosted Chocolate Vanilla Crème Pop-Tarts!
Do you see the difference?
It’s that sophisticated “è,” which requires you to serve every pastry as an appetizer, hors d’oeuvre, or dessert at a classy dinner gala.
See, the è has never appeared on packages before: not when Chocolate Vanilla Creme Pop-Tarts were first introduced (no one knows exactly when—not even the authoritative Pop-Tarts Wiki), not when they were discontinued in 2009, and not even when they were briefly revived in 2014 as a Limited Edition flavor for Pop-Tarts’ 50th birthday.
But now these Chocolate Vanilla Crème Pop-Tarts, complete with the accent mark, are back as a Kroger store exclusive and wrapped in debonaire foil before me. Time to scarf one down with my pinky out, like a true toaster pastry gentleman. Continue reading →
“That’s Life,” I said, doing the world’s worst Frank Sinatra impression in the Kroger breakfast aisle as I gazed upon Quaker’s new Vanilla Life cereal.
“That’s what all the people crunch. You eat it dry in April, with milk in May. But I know I’m gonna change that tune, when it’s all soggy—all soggy in June.”
Okay, now that I’ve gotten all the Weird Al Yankovic out of my system for the day, I can crunch into these brand spankin’ new and vanilla sugar sparklin’ squares.
Though it has a rather subdued box and no mascot ever since Little Mikey grew up and inspired urban legends about Pop Rocks-related deaths, Life Cereal has had many interesting varieties. From 1978’s Raisin Life to 2002’s Apple Life, multiple flavors have went through the “circle of Life,” delighting Mikeys everywhere before their eventual discontinuation.
In recent years, Quaker has stuck to a trilogy of Original, Cinnamon, and Maple Brown Sugar Life. But since Maple Brown Sugar doesn’t appear on the side of my Vanilla Life box, this newbie may have unofficially usurped his syrupy older brother.
You have to taste really good to redeem yourself now, Vanilla Life: I take any insult towards maple syrup as a personal offense. Continue reading →
Welcome back to another edition of Marshmallow Monday. This time around, Marshmallow Fruity Pebbles is our guest of honor.
Marshmallow Monday is a day to honor all of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man’s millions of children, who must soldier on as orphans in s’mores and cereal aisles alike, with only charred memories of their long exploded and molten father.
Never thought you’d shed a single tear for a bag of marshmallows, would you?
But back to these Fruity Pebbles with marshmallows. They’re exactly what they sound like, which means Post went down the sugar family tree, skipped past sprinkles and nonpareils, and found the other two sugariest cereal ingredients they could afford: technicolor crisped rice and marbits.
It’s a recipe for disaster that sounds straight out of a cheap Sci-Fi Syfy Channel disaster movie. And speaking of over-the-top disaster movie concepts: this cereal has Sharkasaurus marshmallows!Continue reading →
For some reason, you chose not to pluck the literal low-hanging fruit and call your new mango cereal “Mang-O’s.” And I just don’t know if I can trust a man who doesn’t exploit every bad pun possible. It’s simply punacceptable.
But I’ll play along anyway, mostly because Trader Joe’s Mango O’s is one of very few mango cereals to ever exist. Outside of Peace Cereal’s Mango Peach Passion and the unfortunately discontinued Mango Coconut Honey Bunches of Oats, mango lovers have long been forced to eat something other than cereal for breakfast.
Like some kind of, I don’t know, fresh fruit or something?
But despair no more, mango maniacs, because Mango O’s are here to provide a breath of fresh air. Well, more like a breath of mango air that’s been sealed for a while in a plastic bag, but you get the idea. Continue reading →
I’m glad Raisin Bran Granola is here to keep me moving. No, not that kind of moving, though it does boast 24% of my daily recommended fiber per serving.
No, I mean moving moving. While I may look like a hip and spry youngster, as soon as I pour my morning bowl of Raisin Bran cereal and cup of coffee, I become about as old and slow as Benjamin Button was at my age.
Like a grandpa with his newspaper, I ponder every raisin like there’s a Nietszche quote written in its wrinkles.
But now that Kellogg’s has debuted two flavors of Raisin Bran Granola (this one and Cranberry Almond) in convenient on-the-go pouches, I feel obligated to leave my cereal bowl behind, go climb mountains, and gaze into abysses that will gaze also into me.
I can’t resist a maple cereal, especially one that’s made with real maple syrup like Nature’s Path Organic’s gluten free Sunrise Crunchy Maple.
How much do I love maple syrup?
Well let’s just say that I would willingly abandon my human body if it meant transplanting my brain into a robot that runs on a syrup and oil mixture. Especially if that robot were a futuristic police android that patrols the Vermont-Canada border.
Can you tell I’ve thought a lot about this?
But I’ve been burned by some maple cereals in the past. They claimed to have bold maple flavor, when really they just tasted like a maple leaf briefly photosynthesized in their general direction.
I can’t resist the allure of that sticky tree sap for long, though. I’m willing to open my syrup encrusted heart once more for you, Sunrise Crunchy Maple. Don’t let me down. Continue reading →
