01

Mar. ’16

Cereal Time with Gabe Fonseca: Honey Bunches of Oats and Sugar Smacks Cereal

Well, looks like it’s time to renew my monthly subscription to HBO. And no, I’m not talking about getting my Game of Thrones fix—I mean Honey Bunches of Oats! With two new episodes in cereal squire Gabe Fonseca’s Cereal Time YouTube series, we wanted to share both with you. Cereal Time takes an in-depth look at a different cereal lineage each week, and it’s chock full of vitamins, minerals, and occasionally King Vitaman.

Honey Bunches of Oats takes the honey-soaked stage first. As Gabe describes, Honey Bunches of Oats have humble beginnings, ever since 1986 when good ol’ Vernon Herzing first mixed 4 different Post cereals into a single Frankenstein’s cereal monster (not to be confused with Franken Berry, of course). Honey Bunches first started as “Battle Creek Cereal,” and even though I’m a Michigan native and would have loved for that name to catch on, it was the much more literal “Honey Bunches of Oats” that finally stuck (both literally and metaphorically: honey is sticky!).

Maybe “Battle Creek Cereal” sounds too much like a cereal killer horror movie. Continue reading →

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28

Feb. ’16

Review: Kashi GoLean Dark Chocolate Cashew Chia Plant-Powered Bar

IMG_4480I find the concept of breakfast bars to be fascinating. All the magic of cereal distilled and molded like sugary Play-Doh into portable, rectangular chunks? They’re the next best thing to carrying around a heart-shaped locket with Toucan Sam’s face inside.

At the same time, I yearn for a simpler era of breakfast bars. I yearn for the days when our only option was bits of actual cereal haphazardly Elmer’s glued together by a sweet, gelatinous white goo that could somehow legally be called “milk.”

But now we live in an era of protein and quinoa and whatever the hell “activated almonds” are. So I’ll happily review one more Kashi Plant-Powered Bar, but I’ll do it with a nostalgic yearning for a simpler time—a time when I accepted a dare to eat just the milk layer of a cereal bar and spent the rest of the dazed afternoon unsure what century it was. Continue reading →

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26

Feb. ’16

Review: Kellogg’s Cinnabon Cereal

IMG_4473Just look at those swirls. Imagine them hypnotically spinning: spinning, twirling, and careening down into your cereal bowl.

You’re getting very, very hungry.

It’s been a relatively slow month for new cereal, so while I continue eagerly hunting for Post’s new Marshmallow Pebbles, I think it’s time I gave a cinnamon-seasoned cereal veteran a proper vetting.

And since the tempting spirals in this box of Kellogg’s Cinnabon cereal have been beckoning me like crunchy sirens for awhile now, they seem like good review candidates.

Maybe now I won’t have to eat bowls full of Taco Bell Cinnabon Delights and milk. I hear that’s how they finally killed Rasputin. Continue reading →

Posted by . Categories: Reviews. Tags: , , . 10 Comments

23

Feb. ’16

Review: Peace Cereal Maple Pecan Clusters & Flakes

IMG_4451Maplemania: a disease that has afflicted many, myself included. It’s native to Canada and and regions of Vermont, and symptoms of this affliction include relentless addiction to syrup-drenched pancakes, habitual licking of maple trees, and compulsive urges to bathe in tubs full of milk-soaked Waffle Crisp.

Recommended treatment is a continual IV drip of Grade A Dark Amber. Or, you know, maybe just a bowl of Peace Cereal’s Maple Pecan Clusters & Flakes cereal. The cereal claims to be flavored with real maple syrup, but will it properly sedate a maplemaniac like me?

For Mrs. Butterworth’s sake, we’d better hope so.

Continue reading →

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21

Feb. ’16

Review: Kashi GoLean Peanut Hemp Crunch Plant-Powered Bar

IMG_4446Imagine this “Choose Your Own Adventure:”

Your eyes jolt open. You feel more rested than usual, and as you look at the clock and experience a mild heart attack, you realize why—you slept through your alarm!

After dancing your way through a frantic shower (no one’ll notice the shampoo still dripping from your ears, right?) and flailing into dress clothes, you’re about ready to leave before you conclude that if you don’t grab some breakfast, your growling stomach might roar you off the side of the road.

Bursting into your pantry, you have three choices:

A) A bowl of Raisin Bran with milk (eaten with one hand on the steering wheel)

B) A slab of bacon (cooked on a portable skillet plugged into your cigarette lighter)

C) A Kashi GoLean Peanut Hemp Crunch Plant-Powered Bar

If you chose A or B, prepare for a tragic “THE END” to your milk-soaked adventure. But if you chose C like me, turn to the next page and we’ll see if our breakfast choice was any more satisfying than a roadside bacon grease third degree burn. Continue reading →

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19

Feb. ’16

Review: Nature Valley Honey Oat Clusters Cereal

IMG_4427Nature Valley is on a hot streak. With the delicious Chocolate Oat Clusters and Baked Oat Bites already under their granola-crumb encrusted belt, will Nature Valley be able to bowl a turkey, score a hat trick, and direct a fitting end to their trilogy of new 2016 cereals?

This box of Honey Oat Clusters holds the answer to that question. When I saw all three new Nature Valley Cereals, this one looked like the boring runt of the litter.

“It’s just a bootleg Honey Bunches of Oats,” said the youthful and ignorant Dan of two months ago. But after eating my first crunchy spoonful of this cereal, one thing has been made abundantly clear:

This ain’t your grandma’s Honey Bunches of Oats!
Continue reading →

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17

Feb. ’16

Cereal Time with Gabe Fonseca: Ghostbusters and Cabbage Patch Kids Cereal

When there’s something cool, in your breakfast pantry…who you gonna call?

Gabe Fonseca!

That’s right, cereal specialist Gabe Fonseca is back with two new videos in his Cereal Time YouTube series that we’d like to share with you. For the unfortunately uninitiated, Cereal Time covers a different retro, obscure, or legendary cereal each week, and each video is chock-full of fun and flavor (you’ll have to imagine the flavor; please don’t pour milk on your keyboard). Continue reading →

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16

Feb. ’16

News: Three New Cereals on the Way from Annie’s Homegrown

Move over, Trix Rabbit: you aren’t the only bunny in the cereal aisle any more. Annie’s Homegrown and General Mills have just announced the launch of three new USDA certified organic breakfast cereals.

From soup, to yogurt, to crackers, Annie’s has a bigger product line than a litter of rabbits. They even had a larger line of cereal that lasted from 2007-2012. I will say, though, that in my college town, the brand is best known for its legendary and addictive Shells & White Cheddar pasta.

Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately depending on who you are), none of these cereals are mac & cheese flavored. Instead, the three flavors are Berry Bunnies, Cocoa Bunnies, and the conspicuously non-bunny shaped Frosted Oat Flakes.

I can only hope that the bunny cereals taste just like their Bunny Grahams in a bowl, just because I’m so desperate for a spiritual successor to Teddy Grahams Breakfast Bears. At the very least, I can dream that Frosted Oat Flakes will be like a glazed version of the already delicious Trader Joe’s Toasted Oatmeal Flakes.

Regardless of how they taste, when these cereals are released in April, you’d better believe that me and so many others will be “making like rabbits” to go out and try them.

Wait, wait…I don’t think that phrase means what I think it does.

Posted by . Categories: News. Tags: , . 7 Comments