Author Archives: dan g.

Review: Catalina Crunch Ditch Sugar – Dark Chocolate Artisan Cereal

Catalina Crunch Dark Chocolate Cereal Review Ditch Sugar

“Oh, cereal? That old fuddy-duddy?” I chuckle, as I sunbathe alarmingly bronzed and sunglassed before taking a swig of milk from a neon pink thermos, “For a hip, working fella like myself, only Diet Cereal will do. It’s sugar-free, and isn’t that just sweet?

As my smiling commercial fantasy fades out, I’m left with the lucidly real task of reviewing Catalina Crunch’s DITCH SUGAR (as it’s stylized) Dark Chocolate Artisan Cereal. This is tough, because this is not the kind of cereal I usually review here—sure, I’ve tackled healthy cereals, but no sugar? That’s like eating a hot dog bun with just ketchup. Full disclosure, I received this sample from Catalina Snacks, and I chose to review it fairly as a way to diversify my cereal coverage—and hopefully reach internationally soon.

I heard Italian cereal is that real good, deep-dish stuff.

But unlike Diet Coke and its artificial ilk, Catalina Crunch DITCH SUGAR (which I could tattoo on my knuckles) is non-calorically sweetened with plant-derived stevia, meaning this cereal is practically a vegetable. And along with the cocoa fruit? Hand me a dinner Pop-Tart, because I’m set, baby.

The cereal’s Golden Grahamic, ridged squares come in a shockingly small package. I’m not sure if it’s designed to be mixed in with yogurt or smoothies, but it hardly makes a modest bowl alone—unless I’m meant to load a magazine of them into my breakfast cannon and go off. So with careful portion control, I’ll try and make my taste test long enough to get a good read (gotta turn off the Kirby function first). Continue reading

Classic Review: Paw Patrol Kix – Honey & Berry Berry

General Mills Paw Patrol Honey Berry Berry Kix Cereal Review Box

Growing up, I never ate Kix.

Sure, I ate plenty of knuckle sandwiches, but thankfully my school bullies were usually too stout for their ham-thighed roundhouses to reach my molars.

Oh, and I never ate Kix cereal, either. Why? Because in a sea of colorful boxes and bug-eyed cartoon sirens staring down at me, it was hard to justify choosing…lightly flavored corn puffs for my weekly breakfasts—especially with the phonetically similar and superiorly fruit-shaped Trix just a hop, skip and a fist-pump away.

Now years later, the typically un-personified Kix brand is now fronted by Paw Patrol, a show apparently beloved by today’s young’ns. I don’t know what the show is about, so I’m just going to tell myself it involves a canine Village People cover band.

Thankfully, General Mills sent me a couple boxes of the stuff, in both Honey and Berry Berry. So while I wait for some of this and next year’s exciting cereals to arrive, I figured I’d do some dark timeline-traveling and relive the childhood I’m probably glad I never had. Continue reading

Rumor Mill: Three New Kellogg’s Cereals!

kelloggs-rumors

What do the three images above have in common?

Well, they’re all core ingredients in my new, patent-pending-a-restraining-order weight loss formula: Dumpy Dan’s morBID Your Pounds Goodbye Smoothie, which blends together 11 secret carbs and candies to help you lose weight by killing you instantly—thus slowing your metabolism! Best paired with exercise, do not try at home, work, or all.

Jokes aside, each iconic (or at least iconically squishy) food above is the flavorful star of Kellogg’s cereals rumored to be coming soon.

Based on tips from fellow snack food f(r)iends Junk Food Aisle and Candy Hunting, we’ve been able to confirm online grocery database listings for Banana Cream Frosted Flakes, Honey Nut Frosted Flakes, and a potential Peeps Cereal. Unfortunately, none have pictures, but the mental pictures they conjure are enough to leave my taste buds literally watering enough to figuratively fill a marshmallow-bedrocked lagoon.

The first is particularly exciting, because Banana Frosted Flakes have long been a cult favorite since Tony’s more straw-esome days. The second is also intriguing, because if any cereal has the potential to disrupt America’s comparatively wholesome, best-selling cereal, it’s sugar-smacked flakes of corn. After all, when’s the last time you saw a bee take down a tiger?

As for Peeps Cereal, we know very little—I would hope for more than a marshmallow-flavored marshmallow cereal, because ol’ Anthony T. Tiger has pretty much given us that already. Granted, we could be misinterpreting the rumors altogether, because the product’s listed name is “Kellogg’s Licensed Brands Cereal Peeps,” it might mean we’ll be getting Froot Loops and Smorz-flavored Peeps instead of the other way around.

But hey, maybe Kellogg’s is playing the long game, and they’ll just turn that into Froot Loop-flavored Peeps-flavored Cereal. Meta-licious!

Stay tuned to our blog and social media, where I’ll post any updates on this story as it develops. Thanks again to our tipsters—if you know anything more about any new cereals, hit up our Submissions page.

Mini Review: Reese’s Puffs Bats Cereal

Halloween Reese's Puffs Bats Cereal Review Box

Holy early Autumn, Bartman! Just yesterday I was fending off the Sprites of Summer with honeysuckle and incense, and now you’re telling me the Bats of Fall are already echolocally a-knockin’?

Well forget the onion bread we have in the oven: it’s garlic season.

But not until after a brief detour through Dog-Day Eager Beaver season. See, the likes of Tony the Tiger, Toucan Sam, and now the constituents of some Count Choco-Peanut Buttula love to release their annual signature cereals before the dog days have finished yipping. While this is great for Halloween cereal lovers, it’s admittedly a bit sad when I overeagerly and unrestrainedly review them all before mid-September and I’m left writing about the trigonometry of Frute Brute’s incisors by 10/31.

So while I’m admitting I have a problem, instead of doing anything about it I’ll just pretend I’m eating Reese’s Puffs Sideways TIE Fighters. Continue reading

Spooned & Spotted: Monster Cereal 3-pack!

Monster Cereal 3-pack

Kids nowadays have it so easy.

See, back in my day, we had to drive uphill both ways to Walmart, just to find Count Chocula. Then it was a grueling 5-mile crabwalk across gravel to snag Franken Berry at Target, before an interstate-length hot coal walk just to be told by my local Walgreens that Boo Berry is only available at some Cracker Barrel gift shop in the middle of a volcano.

So yes, I may be exaggerating a little, and General Mills’ new Monster Cereal bundle—found by Snack Stalker (thanks for sharing!) at Sam’s Club—may be convenient, but if my mom brought home a box set trilogy of breakfast’s finest freaks of nature, I’d be a little disappointed about losing the thrill of the hunt.

After all, chalky marshmallows taste so much better with sweat and elbow grease as their milk.

But I suppose if you want a fisticuff-worthy grab bag gift or seasonally appropriate doorstop, you can’t really go wrong with buying your breakfast boogeymen in bulk.

Review: Kellogg’s Pumpkin Spice Frosted Flakes

Pumpkin Spice Frosted Flakes Cereal Review Box

What does late-stage pumpkin mania look like?

Yeah, yeah: I’m not suggesting that this country’s obsession with autumnal seasoning is going to be squashed out any time soon—I’ve made that mistake for about three consecutive years now. But I am saying that we are approaching an absurdity threshold, where even illogical products are being consecrated by this harvested incense.

And the breakfast aisle is no exception. On the surface, Frosted Flakes is a cereal dominated by tame flavors like chocolate and cinnamon—other cereals like this include Golden Grahams and Corn Pops—but it’s trying out this whole pumpkin spice thing with the timeliness of my grandpa doing the Harlem Shake. Plus on the back is a decked-out Halloween music festival called “Tony’s Pumpkin Up the Jams Fest.” Which is honestly a pretty unforgivable pun…

…that I wish I had thought of first.

Taking hipness out of the equation, I must still evaluate Pumpkin Spice Frosted Flakes with the unbiasedly refined palate of a cereal journalist. Or of Einstein’s dog, I guess. Continue reading

Review: Strawberry Life Cereal

Quaker Strawberry Life Cereal Review Box

Believe me, the strawberry life is a tough one to live.

I would know: I’ve tried it. Always being the sweetest and most loved in the room? It’s not a proud path to follow, but you hand out enough free gum and anyone can be the most loved kid in 5th grade American History class. And having to hang out with Franken Berry? Respect to his legacy, but as a conversationalist, he’s a bit of a dolt—or at least a pain in the neck.

I did like wearing pastel pink though.

That’s all to say that Quaker’s new Strawberry Life cereal faces a questionable judge in this review. I found that there have been very few fruity Life Cereals (Pumpkin Spice doesn’t count!), and perhaps for good reason: I typically associate Life’s multigrain biscuits with richer flavors, so a fruit-filled flavor like strawberry will have to pull some real flavor sorcery to realign my expectation of what a Mikey-approved cereal can be.

Let’s see how much of the strawberry life this can restore to my currently bananas existence. Continue reading

News: Pop-Tarts Cereal Will Return in Early 2019!

2018 Pop-Tarts Cereal Strawberry Box

Photo via Kellogg’s

(Update: We reviewed both flavors!)

You ever hear news so good, it gets you feeling a little warm?

But not like, the bad, sweaty, smelly kind. Or the hauntingly feverish kind either. More like the cozily grill-lined, hot & toasty feeling of a warm blanket, or perhaps a toaster set to massage mode.

That’s how I felt when receiving visual confirmation that Pop-Tarts Crunch, a cereal thought to be lost by the technicolor dawn of Y2K and then unsuccessfully rebooted around 2013, will be returning to shelves on just as the year 20-ea-ting ends.

Continue reading