Review: Nature’s Path Organic Sunrise Crunchy Maple Cereal

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 →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 7 rating, gluten free, maple, nature's path. 10 Comments

May. ’16

Three of the Best Cereal Commercials on TV Now

Cereal isn’t all about the sugary flakes and crunchy rings. It’s about the culture, too. Of course, since you’re reading a cereal blog, I probably don’t need to tell you that.

From the colorful characters to the mail-in premiums and games on the back of the box, there’s a good reason breakfast cereal has stood the test of time and become a full-on lifestyle for nostalgia-holics like me.

Growing up, my favorite part was always the TV commercials. Only on Saturday morning could you slurp down a bowl of Golden Grahams, binge watch Pokémon, then see a commercial about Toucan Sam’s deep sea adventures that makes you forget the Golden Grahams and inspires you tow your mother to the grocery store for a fresh box of Froot Loops that will fuel the exact same process the next weekend.

But as we grow older and start to substitute Cartoon Network with CNN and such, we see way fewer cereal commercials. I guess it’s hard to bookend Wolf Blitzer with Chip the Wolf.

That’s why I still purposely tune into Nickelodeon most mornings while I chomp down Raisin Bran Crunch or Cheerios. Aside from the sweet, sweet SpongeBob re-runs, I get to see that cereal commercials are still alive, well, and awesome.

Here are three of the best. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: cheerios, cocoa puffs, commercials, general mills, lucky charms, special. 3 Comments

May. ’16

Review: Coffee Cereal — Original & Café Mocha

Now this is a fun one, cereal fans. I’ve been meaning to try Coffee Cereal for a long time: long before I even knew it actually existed.

See, back in high school, I was given one of those clichéd school projects, the kind you see Urkel and the Olsen twins struggle with on ’90s sitcoms. My challenge was to think of and prototype an invention, an invention no one had thought of before.

Since I ate cereal and drank coffee every morning (and ate lunch alone, probably because of the whole coffee snobbery), I had the genius idea of inventing a coffee cereal. I was all prepared to start designing “Cappuccin-O’s” boxes and rolling Cheerios in espresso powder, but then I found out that Coffee Cereal already exists, made by a small company in Missouri.

Into the metaphorical and literal trash my idea went.

Years later, I’ve finally gotten over my bitterness (though I still drink bitter coffee), and now I’m ready to review the real thing. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 7 rating, 8 rating, coffee. 3 Comments

May. ’16

Review: Kellogg’s Frosted Crush Orange Pop-Tarts

I wish Kellogg’s two new “Soda-licious” Pop-Tarts (Crush Orange and A&W Root Beer) were released in 2020.

Why?

Because that’s when the new Godzilla vs. Kong film is set to debut, and these two flavors would be the perfect movie tie-in. I can see it now: Kong’s Gorilla Sarsaparilla Pop-Tarts vs. Godzilla’s Atomic Crush Orange Pop-Tarts.

Batman vs. Superman, eat your hearts out.

That “Atomic” label is especially appropriate, because as I quickly found out when eating these toaster pastries, Kellogg’s didn’t just go orange. They went explosively radioactive orange. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, kelloggs, non cereal, pop-tarts. 3 Comments

May. ’16

Review: Kellogg’s Frosted A&W Root Beer Pop-Tarts

I’m glad I’m finally mature and intelligent enough to eat Kellogg’s new “Soda-Licious” A&W Root Beer Pop-Tarts.

Back when I was a kid, I never drank root beer without parental supervision. See, opening the fridge and seeing the word “beer” would immediately fill me with fear that I’d get clobbered for having accidentally sipped some forbidden alcoholic elixir.

Of course, I can laugh at my childhood illiteracy now, just like how I laugh at my dumb childhood self for eating the brown paper layers on Reese’s Cups. I didn’t know they were there, I swear!

Now it’s time to redeem myself by eating far too many artificially root beer-flavored, frosted and sprinkled sugar rectangles. Because everyone knows the best kind of redemption ends in a shameful food coma. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 7 rating, kelloggs, non cereal, pop-tarts. Leave a comment

May. ’16

Review: Cap’n Crunch’s HomeRun Crunch

♪ We’re talkin’ cereal!

The Cap’n, Snap and Crackle.

Talkin’ cereal!

The Count and Franken Berry.

Toucan Sam, Trix Rabbit, and Buzz Bee! ♫

Sorry, readers. Cap’n Crunch’s new HomeRun Crunch just has me singing a tune because I love cereal and baseball so much. Oh, don’t get me wrong: I don’t like playing baseball. I have worse coordination skills than a mandatory elementary school choir concert.

But I do like going to baseball games, because it gives me an excuse to eat a hot dog with one hand, a cone of cinnamon almonds with the other, and a second hotdog that I have precariously balanced on the crook of my elbow.

Now thanks to the Cap’n, I can indulge in baseball-themed gluttony without being exposed to natural light, social interactions, and criminally overpriced Dippin’ Dots served from a cheap plastic baseball cap. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 9 rating, cap'n crunch, quaker. 15 Comments

May. ’16

Review: Annie’s Organic Frosted Oat Flakes Cereal

Easter may be over, but it isn’t too late to welcome a brand new hare into the mystical Brotherhood of Breakfast Bunnies.

It’s a pretty exclusive club, consisting of only the Trix Rabbit and Quicky from Nesquik Cereal. Despite his floppy ears, Count Chocula has been repeatedly denied membership.

No one knows what goes on in the BoBB, but we can only assume it involves cereal sphere chakras, milky meditation, and making fun of the Cadbury Bunny’s silly clucking. Now the Annie’s Bunny has joined their ranks, as Annie’s Homegrown has just released three new organic breakfast cereals: Cocoa Bunnies, Berry Bunnies, and Frosted Oat Flakes.

I had to try Frosted Oat Flakes first; since the other two rabbits have fruity and chocolatey cereals covered, Frosted Oat Flakes seemed like the freshest concept. If breakfast cereal were a fighting game, “Frosted Oat Flakes” would be the Annie’s Bunny’s signature finisher move. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 6 rating, annie's, general mills. 13 Comments

May. ’16

Catching Up on Cereal Time with Gabe Fonseca!

Put Netflix on pause, because w’ve got something better for you to binge watch than all 10 seasons of Friends for the third time this year.

See, it’s been a while since we visited cereal generalissimo Gabe Fonseca’s informative and nostalgic Cereal Time YouTube series. The show covers a different cereal each week, and it totally deserves to be nominated for a Tony award—a Tony the Tiger award, that is.

Speaking of which, the first of four videos we’d like to share with you features Gabe awarding his top ten cereals of all time. Unsurprisingly, there’s absolutely no overlap between Gabe’s list and my own list of favorite cereals. This is probably because of our age difference, but by viewing our two rankings, you can get a taste (well, at least a look. Lickable computer screens aren’t real yet, right?) of twenty different iconic cereals covering decades, if not centuries of colorful cereal history.

If nothing else, I do agree that Cap’n Crunch wins most iconic cereal mascot of all time. If the good Cap’n can defy physics and wear his eyebrows on his hat, he deserves to be #1 of something. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: cereal time, general mills, ralston. 1 Comment