Author Archives: dan g.

Re-Review: Cracklin’ Oat Bran

Today, July 5th, 2025, marks the 10th anniversary of Cerealously dot net.

It’s been a long, strange journey from the high school bathroom stall where I, while scrolling The Impulsive Buy, first had the idea to create my own food blog — albeit one with a hyper-specific niche I felt I could truly own.

And while this site has been (and will continue to be) on quasi-hiatus for years now, rest assured that the cereal world still influences the gravity of my own every single day. I have made lifelong friends, advanced my career, and enjoyed unforgettable experiences, all because of these bits of sweetened whole grain we call breakfast cereal, and for that, I am eternally grateful. Whether this is your first time reading Cerealously, or whether you’ve been here since July of 2015, I thank you for helping shape the trajectory of my life like a demiurgic spoon writing scripture using Alpha-Bits.

The world of cereal has changed a lot in that time, too, and I think many would agree it hasn’t been for the better. The Big 4 cereal giants continue to crank out cheap, corn-based, and birthday cake-basted non-starters, while the classics, too, constantly get inferior re-formulations so their corporate creators can save pennies on the dollar. Sure, they may say they need to do so, since cereal sales are down, but maybe sales are down because a lot of cereal sucks now?

On the bright side, there are still fun new innovations to be found, and a lot of your old favorites still taste like you remember, so I figured I’d celebrate Cerealously entering the double digits by digging back into one of the first cereals I ever reviewed on this site — with a 10/10 score, no less.

Yes, it’s Cracklin’ Oat Bran, a cereal I admittedly haven’t eaten in years. But I was grocery shopping, and a box of it caught my eye. And you know what they say: when the Crackle calls, you answer. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: kellogg's. 1 Comment

Apr. ’25

Review: Totino’s Pizza-Flavored Cinnamon Toast Crunch

Well, that’s one way to get me excited about a new cereal again.

Yes, as I sat cloistered in my insular cereal study — a Luddite protesting the breakfast aisle’s newfangled dud bites whilst clinging to his oldfangled Honey Nut Cheerios and Raisin Brans — I felt confident that my crunchy comfort zone would remain an unbustable breakfast bunker.

But then they came: tempting tendrils that smelled of cinnamon and oregano, worming their way through my defenses like thin-crust lockpicks until I couldn’t resist their nonsensical allure any longer. I swung the doors wide open and bellowed to the thrumming metropolis below:

“I simply MUST try Totino’s Pizza-Flavored Cinnamon Toast Crunch!”

It wasn’t easy to acquire, mind you. General Mills only gave away 1,000 of them in a recent sweepstakes, and I didn’t even win one. But thanks to long-time fans of the blog Case & Hannah, who were kind enough to share their spoils, I can give you a full deep-dish deep-dive answer to the question everyone and their Marge Simpson is asking:

What the hell? Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: general mills, toast crunch. 2 Comments

Jan. ’25

Oreo Puffs Review: Or, Why It’s Hard to Care About New Cereal Any More

I hate Oreo Puffs.

Not because they taste bad, mind you—they’re perfectly serviceable as a milquetoast little cookies & cream cereal that tastes more or less exactly like Oreo O’s.

No, I hate Oreo Puffs because they perfectly encapsulate the ongoing creative decline of the cereal industry.

I’m sure most people would agree that cereal “isn’t as good as it used to be.” And sure, a big part of that is how we view retro cereals through rose-tinted taste buds. Everything tasted better when you were a kid, because you didn’t have adult responsibilities, nor an adult’s sensitive stomach and tolerance for black coffee that makes sweet things taste just too sweet.

But it’s also impossible to deny that, on a pure formulation level, cereals are worse now. Time and time again, Big Cereal makers are replacing or diluting heartier base grains like wheat and oat flour with cheaper, mealier, obtrusively flavored corn flour. They’re also streamlining the geometry, cutting back on fun marbit shapes and turning everything into spheres—again, probably because it’s cheaper than running a bunch of different extruder machines. They’re removing fun and games from the back of the box and replacing them with simplistic graphics or pithy copy. Meanwhile, the very idea of a “free prize inside” is fossilized in a museum somewhere, I think next to the Diplodocus.

And perhaps worst of all, Big Cereal just isn’t releasing anything novel or interesting. Sure, there are exceptions, even in a strikingly uninspired year like 2024, but by and large, new cereals fall into one of three camps: a reintroduction of a cereal that already existed, a cross-application of a flavor they’ve already used elsewhere, or something that no one in their right mind ever asked for.

Post’s Oreo Puffs, as the omni-paradigm of an unimaginative “new” cereal, does all of the above and more (by which I mean less). Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: oreo o's, post. 8 Comments

Sep. ’24

Review: Pop-Tarts Giant Party Pastry!

This is big.

Very, literally, and very literally big.

But it’s also one of a precious small number.

Yes, this rectangular beast is one of only 45 Pop-Tarts “Party Pastries” ever made, and I never expected to actually get one. Like with most hyper-limited-edition breakfast grails, I expected bots and scalpers to scoop up all 45 of ‘em before we everypeople could even type in our zip codes. Not to mention, Kellogg’s said they would only deliver these hulking Party Pastries to addresses in New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago—three cities I definitely don’t live in.

But yet, just like how love and life always find a way, so too did fate’s strawberry-red thread weave together serendipitous circumstances that allowed my mouth to meet this meaty toaster pastry (as if there’s a toaster in the world—or even an MRI machine—that could fit it). $60 later, and with the help of multiple beloved friends both Chicagoan and generously-willing-to-drive-6-hours-round-trip-while-I-was-in-Alaska, my (our) 3’x2’ munch-strosity landed safely.

And life was never the same.

…Well, it’s actually pretty much the same. Just a bit more bloated.
Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: kellogg's, pop-tarts. 12 Comments

Aug. ’24

Review: Salted Caramel Honey Bunches of Oats

I’ve got a fresh theory for you. Pull up a chair, imagine me seated backwards in one, and tell me what you think of this:

See, I’ve been thinking. With 9(!) years of cereal journalism quite literally under my belt, what am I even looking for from the cereal industry any more? While I still love cereal, it’s hard to deny that I’ve lost a lot of hope that Big Cereal will ever do the right thing and release thoughtful, heartily formulated new products that will put a smile on my face and intestines alike—y’know, like they used to, back in the day.

Lately it seems like General Mills, Kellogg’s, and their ilk (though Post is the closest to upholding quality standards [hint hint about this review’s conclusion]) have been in a race to the bottom, rehashing existing cereals or covertly cheapening their recipes to save a little money at the expense of edibility and consequent enjoyability.

So, naturally, I should be praying for bombastic breakfast innovation, right? That’s what I thought for a while. Why, then, has every recent attempt at taking cereal to brave new frontiers kind of, well, flopped like a fish in a tank of New Coke?

It’s pretty simple: from cereals that do in-mouth climate control to flavors that could generously be described as “unique,” these innovations aren’t anything anyone is actually asking for! (Now that’s what I call dissonance amongst assonance.)

What do I want, then? Well if bland reskins and vulgar palate fumigants are on opposite ends of the objectionable cereal continuum, perhaps the apex of golden, agreeable achievement lies somewhere in the middle—and there is perhaps no better cereal to support that hypothesis than new Salted Caramel Honey Bunches of Oats.

(Well, maybe there’s one better cereal. But we’ll get to that!)

Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: caramel, honey bunches of oats, post. 4 Comments

Jun. ’24

Review: Fruity Pebbles Waffles! Cereal

“This feels like stolen valor.”

That was my first thought upon trying Post’s new Fruity Pebbles Waffles! (a cereal that must be spoken about with eternal enthusiasm, because the exclamation point is very much a part of its name).

See, Fruity Pebbles Waffles! (:D) has the exact same existential issue that CinnaGraham Toast Crunch does. They’re both fantastic cereals, but they’re fronted by the wrong brand. Just as CinnaGraham Toast Crunch was defined by, well, its graham, and should thusly/justly have been branded as “Cinnamon Golden Grahams,” Fruity Pebbles Waffles! (yippee!) should really be called Fruity Waffle Crisp! (it can keep the exclamation point), because this stuff is carried by sweet, sweet maple syrup.

Yeah, yeah, I get it: Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Fruity Pebbles are way more recognizable IPs and will sell way better this way, but c’mon, can’t we hand the underdogs a win once in a while? Golden Grahams never gets spinoffs, and Waffle Crisp hasn’t had one since 2000’s arcane Halloween Brew Waffle Crisp—a cereal that came with a pouch of “Spooky Sprinkles” and whose existence was a miracle in its own right.

All I’m saying is they should’ve at least had Fred and Barney high-fiving Waffle Boy on the box. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: pebbles, post, waffle crisp. 11 Comments

Apr. ’24

Review: Ghost Protein Cereals

Even more than the literal likes of “Waffle Crisp,” “Raisin Bran,” and “Honey Bunches of Oats,” Ghost Cereal may be the most aptly named cereal of all time.

Why? Because it tastes like the ephemeral phantom of an actual cereal.

Okay, I realize that sounds harsh, but you have to (and probably already do) understand something: I’m a cereal reviewer. I like sugary, sweet, grainy things. So when General Mills sent me a two-pack of Ghost Protein Cereal to try, they had to know that I wasn’t exactly the target audience…right?

Sure, I go to the gym, and sure, I like eating protein—but I typically do the latter in the form of mercury-poisoningly high doses of canned tuna, not cereals alchemically crafted from solidified milk protein. Which is all to say that my opinions on Ghost Protein Cereal probably won’t matter to fans of “normal” cereal (who weren’t gonna by this stuff anyway), nor will they be at all helpful to bodybuilders (who are seeking the perspective of someone who’s building a body not powered by cinnamon, toast, and crunch).

Which is all all to say that you should probably just stop reading here, for what’s to come will be mere semantic noise. Feel free to just turn on a dusty old box fan to get the same effect. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. 5 Comments

Jan. ’24

Review: General Mills Loaded Cereals (Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Trix, Cocoa Puffs)

Oh, filled cereals—is there any cereal subgenre with a legacy as troubled as yours?

Perhaps it all started with 1993’s Hidden Treasures, a high-concept cereal that paired hollow cereal pieces with a trio of fruit-filled ones for breakfasters to serendipitously spoon. Heck, there was even a codex for determining which pieces held which fruit: “Pieces with a seam very close to the edge had a grape filling, off-center seams had orange, and directly center seams had cherry.”

And while Hidden Treasures is remembered incredibly fondly by today’s nostalgic noshers, it only lasted on shelves for two years, either due to poor sales or the high cost of producing a breakfast cereal elaborate enough to require a field guide.

Thus began the curse of the filled cereal: if you’re a crisped biscuit with a lil somethin’ in the center, you were destined for either discontinuation (like Pop-Tarts Cereal) or divisiveness (like Krave, which, despite being a cereal aisle mainstay and one of my personal favorites, seems to be deeply hated by about 50% of those who try it).

That leads us to today: these three Loaded Cereals are, in fact, General Mills’ third attempt at a post-Hidden Treasures filled cereal revival. First we had the ill-fated Fillows, whose dense, dessert-like decadence didn’t land with those seeking morning meals that wouldn’t leave them anchored, bloated and drooling, to their breakfast tables. Then there were General Mills Filled Bites, which were basically just Fillows all over again, and, as such, they never made it out of test markets.

Which is a huge bummer, since I, as a shamelessly indulgent density devotee, loved both Fillows and the Filled Bites. But perhaps there’s room in my heart to try again. So give me your best shot, Loaded Cereals…before you end up disappearing and breaking that very same heart again. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: cocoa puffs, filled cereals, general mills, toast crunch, trix. 3 Comments