Category Archives: Reviews

Review: Kellogg’s Unicorn Cereal with Magic Cupcake Flavor!

Happy Mythological Creatures Day!

What? It’s not fair that the leprechaun gets all the attention on St. Patrick’s Day. People are turning rivers green, eating their weight in pickled cabbage, and drinking enough specialty beverages to leave them dazed (I’m talking post-Shamrock Shake sugar crashes, of course). For a day so absurd by definition, I don’t want to constrain my cryptid celebration to a mischievous little green gnome.

I want Mothman fly-overs with the Blue Angels. I want Chupacabra parades so large the price of goat will skyrocket. I want statues erected to honor Uncle O’Grimacey. And I want to scarf down Kellogg’s new Unicorn Cereal, which has finally hit American shelves after gracing international ones as Unicorn Froot Loops for nearly a year now.

Why Kellogg’s decided to drop “Froot Loops” from the title, I don’t know—maybe Toucan Sam won the copyright battle, claiming the unicorn’s horn is too similar to his beak—but if it means seeing a fresh equine face in the cereal aisle, I’m all for it.

Because where else could people eat unicorns and rainbows for breakfast? No-*cough*literallyrighthere*cough*-where! Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 5 rating, kelloggs. 6 Comments

Mar. ’18

Review: Lucky Charms with Magical Unicorn Marshmallows

The year is 2022: the last known record of humankind.

Following the success of their Magical Unicorn, Jazzy Yeti, and Iridescent Riddle-Telling Sphinx marshmallows, Lucky Charms has decided to keep the cryptozoological marbit trend rolling with a sugar nugget more mythical than ever before: a Technicolor Cthulhu marshmallow!

Predictably, this marshmallow becomes too ornately psychoactive—too destructively beautiful—instantly vaporizing any who see it with its multi-folded, granulated power. The end of civilization naturally follows.

Grim, I know, but that deadly premonition is years away. We should rejoice while we can, because Lucky Charms’ newest Magical Unicorn is a gorgeous harbinger of breakfast doom. It also marks a very strange shift in Lucky Charms’ ethos: just a year or two ago, General Mills was so committed to removing artificial colors that they turned the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles—veritable icons of neon ’80s excess—into pallid reptile droppings (that still tasted good, mind you).

There were even reports that Lucky Charms would lose its artificial colors too, by the end of 2017 or so, leading tinfoil-hat conspiracists like me to predict last year’s Mixed-Up Marshmallow Cereal were conditioning cereal lovers to accept color changes. But after the milk-splashing cannonball of a flop that was all natural Trix, GM seems to have abandoned this ideal, bringing back Trix and introducing this very very artificially colored unicorn marshmallow, finally acquiescing to the ravenous demands of inner children everywhere.

Because the best news is that the Magical Unicorn is a permanent addition to the Lucky Charms family, replacing the youngest of the brood: the hourglass. I’d like to see how the Unicorn explains the ‘glass’ absence to the rest of the sugary fam, but I’m sure it can just say he’s “having the time of his life at a farm upstate.” Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 9 rating, lucky charms. 1 Comment

Feb. ’18

Review: Grape-Nuts Trail Mix Crunch Cereal

I’m not gonna lie to you: I don’t hit a lot of trails.

The Oregon Trail for PC? Sure. Trailer Park Boys reruns? Definitely? But any sort of wooded or, dare I say, forested path that requires physical exertion and appreciation for non-pixelated nature? Count me out.

That’s how dysentery starts.

But I’m still more familiar with fictional trails than being fit, which is why I won’t penalize Grape-Nuts Trail Mix Crunch for its box’s blatant lie. See, this stuff isn’t new: it’s just a rebrand of 5-year old cereal Grape-Nuts Fit—a fact Grape-Nuts itself confirmed on my Instagram.

Luckily, I never reviewed Grape-Nuts Fit before, so it won’t be redundant if I do so now. Plus this potent little brick of a cereal box weighs in at over 1 pound, which, given its size, makes it count as powerlifting every time I pour from it.

So let’s get fit(tin’ this stuff into my mouth)! Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, grape-nuts, post, vanilla. 1 Comment

Jan. ’18

Quick Review: Great Grains Coconut Almond Crunch Cereal

The coconut is an odd organism.

A sphere of tropical water protected by a hairy rind so thick you could clock a cartoon character ‘cross the noggin without cracking it, the coconut as an edible fruit takes a backseat to the thing’s most iconic purposes: flavoring piña coladas, serving as a hula girl brassiere, and signaling the entrance of an invisible horse.

Yet the coconut’s incomparable flavor has still developed a cult following—most people either hate coconut, are indifferent about it, or go absolutely cuckoo and nuts about it, rubbing its various oils and butters over their face, arms, and…uh…upside-down cakes.

That’s why every time a coconut cereal comes out, I applaud it. It must be a risk for the company involved, yet it’s still a rare treat that lets me have a breakfast luau without busting out the maple-glazed pig roast.

Case in point: I’m excited to review Great Grains Coconut Almond Crunch, because two nuts are better than one.

Wait…no. I take that back! Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 7 rating, almond, coconut, great grains, post. 6 Comments

Jan. ’18

Review: Nature Valley Nut Butter Granolas – Peanut Butter & Honey Almond Butter

Peanuts and almonds have an oligopoly over the nut butter market.

There, I said it. If Vladimir Nutin and his secret legume agents take me down, you’ll find my full manifesto buried 50 paces east of the old Siberian walnut factory.

All I’m saying is that, while peanut and almond butter is good and all, I think other nut butters deserve their moment in the sunflower oil-emulsified sun.

Cashew butter is delightful. Pecan butter is an underrated gem. And wingnut butter contains so much iron!

Yet General Mills and Nature Valley chose to use peanut butter and almond butter to flavor their newest pouches of granola. I’ll forgive them for now because they used honey in their almond butter granola, but if I’m martyred for this expository review, I’ll be leaving a scathing eulogy.

Oh well, might as well munch while I wait for my door to be punched down. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, almonds, general mills. 7 rating, granola, nature valley, peanut butter. 1 Comment

Jan. ’18

Review: Special K Nourish – Berries & Peaches Cereal (with Real Fruit & Yogurty Pieces)

Different foods do “chaos scoops” better.

You know, chaos scoops: when you grab a big handful of a mixed foodstuffs with blatant disregard for flavor sorting or portion control, slam it in your mouth with the grace of a Legends of the Hidden Temple contestant putting the Silver Monkey together, and relish in a lawless hodgepodge of melded flavors.

Trail mix is good about this (as long as you maintain a respectable nuts-to-M&M’s ratio), Skittles scoops are hedonistically sweet, and jelly beans are the definition of risk vs. reward—you get one black licorice or cinnamon in there and it’s a whammy for your digestive system.

That’s why I was curious about Special K’s new Berries & Peaches cereal, the third in their probiotic line of Nourish cereals (I hear if you eat them while taking an antibiotic, your gut flora unites to punch you in the colon). With so many ingredients—flakes, dried strawberries/blueberries/peaches, and yogurty bits, could Special K possibly pull such complex choreography? Or would it taste like a fire in my (Jelly) Belly?

Well it’s time to make a sacrifice for the people. If I start posting pro-bacteria propaganda next week, know that I’ve been compromised. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, blueberry, fruit, kelloggs, special k, strawberry. 10 Comments

Jan. ’18

Review: Kellogg’s Super Mario Cereal

You know I love you, Mario, but man: you need to work on your personality.

Sure, you can save the princess, grow a killer ‘stache, and kick Goomba buns in every sport (Olympic or otherwise), but plumbing anecdotes and an occasional “Wa-hoo!” isn’t going to make you a hit at parties.

Unless you whip out the big green wind-up boot and cue up Destruction Dance, of course. Just imagine the dance moves!

But really, on my list of favorite little red dudes, you’re pretty far down the list: Pikmin, Cool Spot, that smug M&M, heck, even the Noid would be invited to my wedding before an inarticulate Italian hero whose stats are average in every baseball game.

And that “Thwomp-of-all-trades, Bowser-of-none” problem persists with Kellogg’s and Nintendo’s new Super Mario Cereal, a much-hyped team-up of cereal and video game titans that nearly exploded my website, reputation, and inner child when I leaked news about it last year. Everyone’s excited about the box, which doubles as an Amiibo for Super Mario Odyssey, but since I’m still replaying Super Mario Sunshine on my GameCube and trying to figure out how Game Boy e-Readers work, I don’t have the modern tech to explore that Amiibo functionality.

I do, however, have a spoon, which means we’re all about to see why this fruity marshmallow cereal lives up to the flat (and I’m not talkin’ Paper) legacy of its namesake portly protagonist. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 3 rating, fruity, kelloggs. 10 Comments