Review: New and Improved Alpha-Bits Cereal

The year is 20xx. Innovation is dead. No new cereals are ever released. Instead, every old brand keeps releasing “New and Improved” versions that buff their old selves with unnecessary flavor and cosmetic improvements.

Froot Loops now contains “100% more Froot Jooce” and comes in colors only visible to the hyper-photoreceptive mantis shrimp. Waffle Crisp is now just a box full of freeze-dried Belgian waffles—and the bag is made of intelligent, gelatinous maple syrup that can gain sentience when stored in certain climates. Cinnamon Toast Crunch just contains packets of wheat seeds, yeast, and cinnamon, with instructions for growing, harvesting, and baking your own miniature cinnamon toast.

As for Alpha-Bits? They now contain the letters of every alphabet, from English and Cyrillic to Egyptian hieroglyphics, Klingon, and whatever language the Bionicles spoke. Some also say that spiking a drop of blood into your morning bowl of Alpha-Bits will make them reveal the universe’s existential secrets.

But most agree that’s just ridiculous.

This revamped cereal revolution all started in 2017, as Cocoa Puffs, Krave, Honeycomb, and yes, Alpha-Bits, made a big hullaballoo about self-improvement. As a designated cereal emissary of the year 2017, I’m here to tell you whether Alpha-Bits actually followed through on their “new year, new me” promise, or if they’re just “new meh.” Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 2 rating, post. 197 Comments

May. ’17

5 Cereal Oreo Cookies I Want to See from #MyOreoCreation

While the respective Golden Ages of Hollywood, video games, and breakfast cereal are (arguably) over, there are still plenty of things we’re still in the Golden Age of: memes, on-demand Full House re-runs, and yes, Oreo cookies.

Whereas the 20th century closed with only the most basic of Oreo flavors, and the early 2000s dawdled about with simple novelties like the Uh-Oh Oreo and Oreo Cakesters—which are, to be fair, still my favorite ever Oreo. I will forever lay psychic flowers on their imagined grave—the last couple years have seen a Doubled Stuffed explosion of more wacky Oreo varieties than my non-mathematics degree permits me to count. And now, with the recent, literally explosive release of cracklin’ Fireworks Oreo (and Waffles and Syrup Oreo, which I’ve wanted since I first met Hungry Jack), Oreo is letting fans brainstorm the newest flavor. Sandwich cookie savants can then enter ideas online for a chance to win $500,000, a trip to NYC, and their cookie concept brought to life.

And since we’re also in the Golden Age of me not being able to find enough new products to review—especially not those elusive Jolly Rancher Pop-Tarts that I’ve skulked through enough Walgreens to find that I deserve some kind of disturbed customer loyalty coupon for half off king-sized Peanut M&M’s at any participating Walgreens (or something like that)—I thought it would be fun to think up some cereal-themed Oreo varieties to enter in this #MyOreoCreation sweepstakes.

Cereal’s made it into Oreo cookies before, and Oreo has joined cereal to make the single greatest breakfast of all time, so this mutualistic relationship is proof that there’s enough cereal–Oreo potential to fill a new grocery aisle. We’ll call it the OreO’s aisle. And put it right by checkout so I can make a quick and shameless exit with an armful of crinkling cookie packages at roughly 2am each night.

Anyway, here are 5 Oreo ideas that’ll make Nabisco want to revoke my internet access. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: non cereal, oreo. 11 Comments

May. ’17

Review: Honeycomb Cereal (Now with Bigger Flavor!)

Not since Andre the Giant menacingly knocked on the Honeycomb Hideout’s window have I been so geeked to eat a bowl of Honeycomb cereal.

Sure, the stuff has had fun flavor iterations—Strawberry, Chocolate, Cinna-Graham—and it even briefly got “Twisted Marshmallows” 3 years back in a decades-late attempt to capitalize on the “X-Treme Snax” movement of the radical ’90s. But it has also progressively lost its flavor, as not one, but two ill-received formula changes in the early 2000s left Honeycomb a squishy and styrofoam-y compared to the golden-smacked Golden God it was before the turn of the century.

All that BIG HONEY TASTE Andre had roared about went to go live on a bee farm upstate, so to speak.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4Vd6rv58gA

But this newly revamped Honeycomb boasts a “bigger flavor,” in a charming homage to those days when the cereal hung its hat on its humongous honey-ness. This change comes in the midst of a wider cereal flavor revolution, as Cocoa Puffs and Krave have added “50% more cocoa” and “more chocolate,” respectively. But while those two put an easy-to-measure qualifier on their taste changes, Honeycomb’s flavor is now simply “bigger,” which could either mean they added more honey or hired fatter bees.

Either way, I’m going to try them while I wait for my Giant sideburns to grow in. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Uncategorized. Tags: 6 rating, honey, post. 350 Comments

May. ’17

Review: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Oatmeal (Canada)

Can you see why kids love the taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch Instant Oatmeal—or as some call it in Canada: “Croque Cannele Gruau Instantané?”

Of course: it’s got cinnamon sugar amorphous globs in every bite! It’s the taste you can see…still sticking to your ceiling three weeks later if you fling it hard enough.

Wait, wait—that’s the oatmeal’s old slogan. The new one is much better: crave those crazy hot oat lumps!

Fine, I give up. There’s no real appetizing catchphrase for Canada’s second new cereal-oatmeal hybrid. And even if there was, a burnt sienna bowl of microwaved roses by any other name would taste just as sweet. Or in the case of Cinnamon Toast Crunch Oatmeal, just as bland and disappointing. I know I usually leave my opinion out of each review’s introduction, but I couldn’t resist spoiling my spoiled breakfast from the get-go. This oatmeal has a host of toasty problems, so let’s work backwards and try sourcing its flaws like a paleontologist doing CSI on a pile of raptor skeletons. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 4 rating, canada, cinnamon, general mills, oatmeal, toast crunch. 2 Comments

May. ’17

Review: Lucky Charms Oatmeal (Canada)

This may not be canon, but I believe General Mills’ new Canada-only Lucky Charms Oatmeal is from an alternate timeline in the cereal universe.

In this truly darkest timeline, those cartoon kids who cheerfully steal Lucky the Leprechaun’s sugary breakfast aren’t motivated by hunger or anything rational. No, these serial cereal sociopaths take Lucky’s marshmallowy horseshoes and shooting stars just so they can melt them before his eyes in a bowl of bubbling, magmatic oats.

In this somber universe, Lucky Charms are “masochistically delicious!”

Somehow, those bullies’ mealy instruments of destruction crossed through an inter-dimensional portal and landed on Canadian grocery shelves. It’s the only logical explanation for the grotesque scenes of marshmallowy immolation you’re about to witness. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 6 rating, general mills, lucky charms, marshmallows, oatmeal. 3 Comments

Apr. ’17

Spooned & Spotted (Canada): Limited Edition Maple Cheerios Cereal

Ever wonder what would happen if a French Toast Crunch bread slice decided it wanted to be a doughnut instead?

Well wonder no longer: assuming you have a passport or Canadian citizenship. Because Maple Cheerios—baffling stylized as Cheerios Maple—has quietly dripped onto Canadian shelves as smoothly as syrup through a spigot. It’s a Special Edition flavor released to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday, so stuff the waffle iron back in the pantry and enjoy a cake pan’s worth of this pancake-flavored stuff while you can. I know I’m going to do whatever it takes to get my sticky, Waffle Crisp-stained mitts on a box, whether that means negotiating, migrating, or mutating into a man-moose hybrid.

And speaking of Waffle Crisp, I have high hopes that these Cheerios will taste more authentically maple-y, since they are flavored with real maple syrup. If all goes according to plan, I’ll be stuffing flapjacks with these crunchy syrup circles in no time.

Massive thanks to our friends at Junk Food Canada for sharing the photo above. Maple Cheerios may not be as interesting as Birthday Cake Froot Loops, which are also hitting Canadian breakfast aisles as we speak, but hey: most of my birthday cakes involve maple syrup anyway.

(Most of my birthday cakes are pancakes.)

Got a cool cereal photo of your own to share? Spoon it over to cerealously.net@gmail.com for a chance to see it on the site.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: canada, cheerios, maple, spooned & spotted. 1 Comment

Apr. ’17

Review: Quaker Banana & Maple Oatmeal

Ever had a Canadian Elvis?

It’s a traditional and totally not-made-up sandwich native to North North America that remixes Mr. Presley’s favorite peanut butter and banana sandwich by swapping George Washington Carver’s creamy (or chunky, choosy moms don’t discriminate) legume spread with the sticky sweet life blood of Canada’s flag-starring national tree.

Quaker must be a fan of the Canadian Elvis, because it’s the only logic I can see behind their new(ish) Banana & Maple Oatmeal flavor. Outside of banana pancakes (which are usually paired with compote instead of syrup anyway) and a certain tragic incident in my childhood involving a rogue monkey with a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth, I’ve never heard of banana and maple going together.

Chocolate and bananas? Delicious.
Ice cream and bananas? You couldn’t split us apart.
Peanut butter and bananas? I hunka hunka burnin’ love it.

But maple syrup and bananas is largely unexplored territory—a final frontier worthy of a new Star Trek series. Maple is one of my favorite all-time flavors—I want my funeral procession to end at an IHOP—so Quaker’s got a lot to prove by pairing it with a fruit that barely makes my top 10.

(Though “Maple & Strawberry” probably wouldn’t sound any more palatable) Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 6 rating, maple, oatmeal, quaker. 8 Comments

Apr. ’17

Review: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Lip Balm

What can I say: sometimes I just love cereal so much, I want to kiss it.

I know, I know: a bad one-liner to introduce a bad review. But since this Cinnamon Toast Crunch Lip Balm is the first ever non-edible product I’ve reviewed here, I didn’t know how else to start.

If the antiquated art didn’t give it away, this lip balm totally isn’t new, but I found it in a local grocery bargain bin—along with 10(!) other cereal “flavors”—and I couldn’t resist. I was tempted to drop a crisp green Alexander Hamilton, buy all of them, and coat my mouth ’til it became a living pair of those candy wax lips, but I found some self-restraint and chose the one that sounded like it’d be the most pleasant to have slathered near my taste buds all afternoon.

I’m not saying Cocoa Puff-smacked lips isn’t an appetizing idea, I’m just saying I’ve had enough public Mr. Goodbar mishaps to give me pause. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 3 rating, cinnamon, general mills, non cereal, toast crunch. 3 Comments