REVIEW: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Blasted Shreds Cereal

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Cinnamon Toast Crunch Blasted Shreds Cereal

I do not like Brussels sprouts. I would not eat them here or there. I would not eat them in a truck. I would not eat them with a duck…-billed platypus.

Am I trying to go all Dr. Seuss on you? I could not, would not. But would I eat Brussels sprouts with cinnamon sugar?

Those are foods (assuming cinnamon sugar counts as a food) that I figured were on opposite ends of the tastiness spectrum. What would cinnamon sugar blasted on Brussels sprouts taste like? Since I’m uncertain where the produce section is at my local store (or what Brussels sprouts look like), I’ll leave that question up to you. As a close substitute, I can tell you what the new Cinnamon Toast Crunch Blasted Shreds taste like.

It was with some trepidation that I picked these up, because I put Cinnamon Toast Crunch (CTC) on the Mount Rushmore of breakfast cereals, while Shredded Wheat would go somewhere in the bowels of hell.

I remember when Cinnamon Toast Crunch came out in the 1980s, during a glorious era of sugar cereals when manufacturers didn’t even try to hide how much of the magic white crystals were in them. Just about every cereal had the word “sugar” in it, and if that wasn’t enough, there was even one called Super Sugar Crisp. Sadly, many cereals now trumpet how they have whole grains, help lower cholesterol, and other such nonsense.

So can a cereal that brings together two extremes taste good? Actually, yeah. Obviously, CTC Blasted Shreds are not as good as the original CTC, but it’s still a tasty cereal with a bonus feeling of eating something that is not completely bad for you.

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Upon opening the box, the Shreds did not really have that trademark CTC smell, and they are smaller than I envisioned after seeing an oversized example on the front panel. Even though they’re small, my box contained a good number of conjoined twins that looked more like the larger Shredded Wheat I remember.

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I’m just as likely to eat cereal straight from the box as I am with milk, and these Shreds proved to be quite good sans cow juice. They didn’t seem as heavy or dense as I thought they’d be, and the flavor faithfully replicated the original Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal while the Shredded Wheat did nothing to detract from that.

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Once you dip them in a milk bath, things get even better. The Shredded Wheat did an admirable job of keeping the milk from making the cereal too soggy while allowing some milk in, resulting in a nice crunch with a hint of softness. The overall texture of the cereal is not as rough as you might expect from Shredded Wheat either, and it still packs a potent sugar punch.

While these don’t quite match the original CTC, they do hit the sweet spot by balancing a tasty sugary cereal with healthy whole grain wheat.

(Nutrition Facts – 2/3 cup – 230 calories, 40 calories from fat, 4.5 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 5 milligrams of sodium, 160 milligrams of potassium, 44 grams of carbohydrates, 7 grams of fiber, 13 grams of sugar, and 4 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $2.98
Size: 23.2 oz. box
Purchased at: H-E-B
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Much more fiber and protein than regular Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Tastes good with or without milk. Allows you to brag to others about eating a healthy breakfast of Shredded Wheat (feel free to omit the cinnamon and sugar blast part).
Cons: Not as good as regular Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Doesn’t have the added vitamins and minerals that are typically blasted onto breakfast cereals, which is ironic given the name.

REVIEW: Kellogg’s Super Mario Cereal

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Kellogg s Super Mario Cereal

Released last December, finding Kellogg’s newfangled Super Mario Cereal hasn’t been easy. Long story short, each package has some sort of QR-Code type thingy on it, and if you scan it with your Nintendo controller it unlocks some kind of new in-game content. Naturally, this has led to collectors/hoarders snatching up the product in droves, with online merchants reselling the cereal on eBay at triple, quintuple, and even 100 times the MRSP.

While strolling through the aisles of Walmart on a recent mechanical pencil and instant coffee run, I stumbled across a freshly stocked pyramid of the ultra-rare breakfast foodstuff. And while I was tempted to buy about 20 of them, hold on to them for 25 years and resell them at $200 a pop, I decided to be a good little consumer and only scoop up one. Hopefully, the karma will lead to the re-release of Dunkaroos, or mayhap even the resurrection of the Bell Beefer, in due time.

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Aesthetically, the packaging is pretty pleasing. There are a lot of Easter eggs and in-jokes on the front box, so hardcore Nintendo fans will get a kick out of that. The activity panel on the back, though, is way too rudimentary. Even for a children’s breakfast item, the trivia questions on this one are far too easy. And of course, you have that little QR-Code scanny thing. I’m not sure what it does, precisely, but I’m sure your eight-year-old nephew can fill you in on the details.

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As for the cereal itself, well, it’s pretty mundane. It’s marketed as having a berry flavor, but it doesn’t explicitly tell you what kind of berry. So as soon as you crack open the box, you’re greeted by this weird, artificially fruity scent that’s one part strawberry, one part blueberry, and one part scented unicorn sticker.

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The puffy rice stars are decent looking, but the taste is quite bland – they absorb all of that pseudo-berry chemical flavoring and wind up tasting like Franken Berry and Boo Berry’s illegitimate love child. And maybe it’s just me, but I SWORE there was a mild (yet strangely convincing) bacon-ish undercurrent to each piece. Please, somebody out there back me up on this, for my own sanity.

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The marshmallows, though, are the most disappointing thing about the cereal. Not only do they taste alike (which are like the regular cereal bits, except slightly chewier), they don’t even remotely resemble the classical Super Mario insignia they’re supposed to represent. The 1-up mushrooms are kinda decent, but the mystery blocks and Super Mario hats are just abominations.

Outside of the Mario branding, this is a really generic cereal that reminded me a lot of the Avengers: Age of Ultron cereal Kellogg’s released three years ago. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the exact same formula, albeit with slightly tweaked marshmallow shapes.

Sorry, Mario. You might still be super, but your tie-in cereal here is merely average.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 cup – 120 calories, 10 calories from fat, 1 gram of total fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 grams of cholesterol, 170 milligrams of sodium, 55 milligrams of potassium, 27 grams of total carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, 10 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $2.99
Size: 8.4 oz. box
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: The packaging has a lot of neat nods and winks to the video games. The 1-up mushrooms are pretty nice. The cereal itself may or may not be secretly bacon-flavored.
Cons: The artificial berry flavoring is ho-hum. The puffed rice pieces are uninspired. A disappointing lack of marshmallow pieces shaped like Tanooki suits, King Boos, or Thwomps

REVIEW: Lucky Charms Frosted Flakes Cereal

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Lucky Charms Frosted Flakes Cereal

If you think Lucky Charms Frosted Flakes Cereal is some kind of epic Marvel/DC-like crossover between General Mills and Kellogg’s, hold your horseshoes, hearts, stars, clovers, blue moons, rainbows, and balloons.

With its blue box, “FROSTED FLAKES” in all caps lettering, and Lucky the Leprechaun sliding down a rainbow, it appears as if the two companies put down their spoons and bowls to come together. But that’s not the case and I imagine pigs will fly, hell will freeze over, and all cockroaches on Earth will die before that ever happens.

Instead, Lucky Charms Frosted Flakes Cereal looks as if Lucky Charms’ marshmallows have been paired with some generic version of Frosted Flakes with a name like Frosty Flakes, Frosting Flakes, Flakes with Frosting, Frosting Coated Flakes, Flakes Frosted, Frosted Corn Flakes, Corn Flakes with Frosting, Frosting Coated Corn Flakes, Corn Flakes Frosted, and I Can’t Believe It’s Corn Flakes with Frosting.

The flakes in this cereal have a different shape, are smaller, less frosted, and less sweet, making them not as good as Kellogg’s version. But the generic-looking frosted corn flakes are sweeter, crunchier, and all-around better tasting than the oat cereal pieces in regular Lucky Charms.

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Now, I’ve said on numerous occasions that Lucky Charms is a favorite. But Lucky Charms Frosted Flakes has made me question that. The new cereal is crunchier, more sweet tooth-satisfying, and it’s helped me realize the magic in Lucky Charms is the ability to make us eat mediocre lightly sweetened oat cereal we would never eat without marshmallows.

Let me put it this way, after experiencing Lucky Charms Frosted Flakes, I wouldn’t buy a box of only Lucky Charms’ oat cereal unless I desperately needed horse feed. But I would buy a box of these generic frosted flakes. They improve the classic cereal and seem to stay crunchy longer in milk than the oat pieces.

But, even though I feel this cereal is better, it’s also kind of a letdown. If there was no such thing as Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, which, again, is superior, this might’ve been gr-r-reater than gr-r-reat. But since Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes does exist because we aren’t living in Cereal Earth Dimension Y, I know this could’ve been even better.

Some of you might be saying, “Well then, there’s Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes with Marshmallows.” That’s true, but, unfortunately, that suffers from being the opposite of this cereal. Frosted Flakes are great, but the marshmallows are mediocre. Some may say sugar is sugar, but Lucky Charms’ marbits are better for whatever reason. #magic?

Overall, if General Mills decided to do something drastic and make Lucky Charms Frosted Flakes Cereal THE regular Lucky Charms, I’d be all for it.

(Nutrition Facts – 3/4 cup without milk – 120 calories, 5 calories from fat, 0.5 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 170 milligrams of sodium, 55 milligrams of potassium, 27 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 10 grams of sugar, 15 grams of other carbohydrates, and 1 gram of protein.)

Purchased Price: $4.57
Size: 20.9 oz. box
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Better tasting, sweeter, and crunchier than regular Lucky Charms. Corn flakes seem to maintain their crunchiness better than the oat pieces.
Cons: Not a collaboration between Kellogg’s and General Mills. Using Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes would’ve made this epic. Makes me question how good Lucky Charms is.

REVIEW: Post Nutter Butter Cereal

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Post Nutter Butter Cereal

Eating a bowl of Post Nutter Butter Cereal makes me feel bad.

Oh, there’s nothing wrong with its flavor. But its peanut-like shape makes me feel as if I’m eating the corpses of Planters’ Mr. Peanut and his extended family. It would’ve freaked me out if there were also cereal pieces shaped like top hats, canes, and monocles. But that’s not all I found weird about the cereal’s shape. Nutter Butter Cookies are flat but every single piece in the box bends at the middle.

As you can read on the box, this cereal is made with real peanut butter. Of course, that’s if you consider peanuts, dextrose, hydrogenated vegetable oil, and salt as peanut butter and not peanut butter spread. But it’s not as if there’s a thin layer of peanut butter on every piece. Although that would’ve been amazing and messy.

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Instead, there’s a powdery coating on the cereal that gives it a strong, sweet peanut butter aroma and flavor. The coating also gives the cereal a cool texture. Yes, it’s still a crunchy cereal, but around it is a flavoring that melts when you bite into it. I don’t know if “melt” is the best way to describe it. But whatever it is, it gives the cereal a creaminess. A powder turning creamy is kind of a weird mindscrew.

All it took was popping one piece into my mouth to know that I would love this cereal. The bold peanut butter flavor, while not exactly like Nutter Butter cookies, makes me want to find the biggest bowl in my kitchen, dump the whole bag into it, and snack on it all day. It has a slight saltiness and doesn’t taste artificial. In fact, there were times when it reminded me of boiled peanuts. Even in milk, the peanut butter flavor stays true because the coating doesn’t wash off. The milk at the bottom of the bowl doesn’t get all peanut buttery. But I’m not too sad about that.

With its great peanut butter flavor, there are so many things I want to do with this cereal. I want to eat it with chocolate milk. I want to make milkshakes with it. Heck, I’m going to eat another bowl right now.

If you miss Peanut Butter Toast Crunch Cereal, this is more than a worthy replacement. With its strong peanut butter flavor, sweetness that’s at a level that takes me back 80s cereal, and creamy texture, I have to say it’s the best peanut butter cereal I’ve ever had.

Disclosure: I was provided a free sample by Walmart. The fact that I got it for free did not influence my review.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 cup – 150 calories, 40 calories from fat, 4.5 grams of fat, 0.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 1 gram of polyunsaturated fat, 2.5 grams of monounsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 160 milligrams of sodium, 45 milligrams of potassium, 25 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 13 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: Received for free
Size: 19 oz. box
Purchased at: Available as a Walmart exclusive until 4/1/18
Rating: 9 out of 10
Pros: The best peanut butter cereal I’ve had. Bold, sweet peanut butter flavor. Peanut butter coating gives the cereal a creaminess when it melts in your mouth.
Cons: Pieces not flat like actual Nutter Butter Cookies (is it hard to make flat cereal pieces?). Shape makes me feel as if I’m eating Mr. Peanut and his family. Milk at the bottom of bowl not peanut buttery.

REVIEW: Post Chips Ahoy Cereal

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Post Chips Ahoy Cereal

“I’m eating chocolate chip cookies for breakfast! Life is awesome! Yo Joe!”

That’s what I imagine I yelled decades ago when I had my first taste of Cookie Crisp Cereal. And this is what I’d like to yell now after having my first taste of Post’s Original Chips Ahoy Cereal.

“I’m eating a poor facsimile of chocolate chip cookies for breakfast/lunch/dinner/midnight snack/whenever I feel like it! Adult life is scary! Wubba lubba dub dub!”

Look, let’s be honest and crush the hopes and dream of children everywhere who somehow end up at this review by pointing out that Cookie Crisp/Chips Ahoy Cereal is to cookies as Velveeta is to cheese. They may look the part, but dig deeper and you’ll find the truth. Sorry, kids.

Speaking of digging, I wouldn’t be surprised if Post Chips Ahoy Cereal is a rebranded version of Malt-o-Meal’s Chocolatey Chip Cookie Bites, which is also produced by Post. The two have the exact same ingredients, in the same order, and the exact nutrition facts.

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The cereal looks like mini Chips Ahoy Cookies, if you look at it from three feet away. Anywhere within three feet, it looks like Cookie Crisp. Unfortunately, looking like Chips Ahoy from a distance is the only similarity it has with the popular packaged cookie.

The cereal has a sweet, oat-y aroma that lacks any chocolate. The chocolatey dots don’t stick to the corn and whole grain oat pieces well, so expect a pool of dark dots to settle at the bottom of the bag it came in.

It tastes similar to Cookie Crisp. There’s a nondescript sugariness to it, but only a whisper of chocolate, even with pieces loaded with chocolatey specks. There’s cocoa in the dark dots and in the cereal itself, but it’s hard to detect. Once the sugariness dissolves, the underlying corn and whole grain flavors start to come out. In milk, the dairy enhances the sugary flavors a little, but I wish the chocolate flavor stood out more.

Post Chips Ahoy Cereal doesn’t taste like Chips Ahoy, but that’s what I expected since Post Oreo O’s Cereal doesn’t exactly taste like Oreo cookies. But, it’s disappointing because there’s nothing about it that makes it stand out.

If you enjoy Cookie Crisp, then this will be fine to eat while watching Saturday morning cartoons as part of a complete breakfast or when you throw your spoons in the air and wave ‘em like you just don’t care about what you’re eating for dinner.

Disclosure: I was provided a free sample by Walmart. The fact that I got it for free did not influence my review.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 cup – 120 calories, 20 calories from fat, 2 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 120 milligrams of sodium, 35 milligrams of potassium, 24 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 11 grams of sugar, and 1 gram of protein.)

Purchased Price: Received for free
Size: 19 oz. box
Purchased at: Available as a Walmart exclusive until 4/1/18
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Adequate flavor. Tastes similar to Cookie Crisp. Stays crunchy in milk for a while. Comes in big box.
Cons: Doesn’t taste like Chips Ahoy. Doesn’t taste anything like chocolate chip cookies. Possibly a repackaged version of Malt-o-Meal’s Chocolatey Chip Cookie Bites. Doesn’t have a strong chocolate flavor.

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