REVIEW: Kellogg’s Chocolate Banana Split Pop-Tarts

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The banana split is a highlight of American dessert ingenuity and the ultimate dessert for those who want to give a big middle finger and a loud “fuck it” to their diets.

A classic version of this ice cream dessert includes scoops of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice cream placed in single file on a banana that’s been split in half and topped with chocolate syrup, nuts, whipped cream and maraschino cherries.

The regret and possible diarrhea comes separately.

Although meant for two people, banana splits are usually eaten by 12-year-olds on their birthday or whenever their parents are sick and tired of their corpulent 12-year old’s whining for one. Kellogg’s has taken selected flavors from the beloved banana split and compacted them into a svelte toaster pastry form with their Chocolate Banana Split Pop-Tarts.

I’ve always thought of Pop-Tarts as part of a complete breakfast, but the Pop-Tarts trend of introducing ice cream-related flavors over the years has confused me because I don’t know if it’s appropriate to eat them for breakfast. Just like drinking a malt liquor at the crack of dawn or poppin’ a cap at daybreak, it feels a little weird eating Mint Chocolate Chip Pop-Tarts, Hot Fudge Sundae Pop-Tarts, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Pop-Tarts or Vanilla Milkshake Pop-Tarts to help jump start my day. Until Kellogg’s tells me something otherwise, I’ll continue to eat their toaster pastries in the A.M. only.

The Chocolate Banana Split Pop-Tarts filling is made up of alternating chocolate and banana stripes, but the strong flavor of the white banana stripes overwhelms the brown chocolate stripes. If you hate products that have a weird artificial banana taste and smell, you should avoid these Pop-Tarts. I personally like weird artificial banana tasting products and these Pop-Tarts weren’t bad, but they definitely aren’t anywhere near the top of my list of favorite Pop-Tarts flavors.

The Chocolate Banana Split Pop-Tarts may not be a highlight of Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts ingenuity, but they do have the ability to temporarily silence a corpulent 12-year-old’s whining.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 pastry – 200 calories, 6 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 200 milligrams of sodium, 35 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 17 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein and a bunch of vitamins and minerals.)

Item: Kellogg’s Chocolate Banana Split Pop-Tarts
Price: $2.99 (on sale)
Size: 8 pack
Purchased at: Foodland
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Decent tasting because I like weird artificial banana tasting products. Contains vitamins and minerals. Ability to temporarily silence a rotund 12-year-old’s whining. American ingenuity. USA! USA! USA! Real banana splits.
Cons: Artificial banana taste overwhelmed the chocolate. Contains high fructose corn syrup. Sprinkles don’t add anything. It feel weird eating desserts for breakfast. Eating a whole banana split by yourself.

REVIEW: Kellogg’s 20% Fiber Frosted Chocolate Fudge Pop-Tarts

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Remember when low-carb foods were the big food trend?

You couldn’t walk down an aisle in your local supermarket without running into a food that claimed it was LOW-CARB in, ironically, fat letters. But the oddest thing about this craze was finding low-carb versions of items that were nothing but carbs, like low-carb pasta and low-carb bread.

That trend fortunately died, or lost so much weight with its own low-carb diet that it can no longer be seen, but it seems in its dying moments it passed the food trend torch to high-fiber foods, like the Kellogg’s 20% Fiber Frosted Chocolate Fudge Pop-Tarts, which I feel is extremely dangerous because, as we all know, too much fiber can lead to flatulence and too much flatulence near a torch leads to a flamethrower.

Despite the pyromaniacal possibilities with high-fiber foods, I’m excited about the fiber content in these Pop-Tarts. Although it’s sad the fiber it provides excites me more than the fact that it’s a frosted chocolate fudge Pop-Tart. If I were 20 years younger, I’m sure the focus of my delight would be reversed and I would shrug my shoulders to the five grams of fiber in each Pop-Tart while I chomp my way through its toasted, gooey goodness.

With this particular version of Pop-Tarts, Kellogg’s has successfully made them slightly healthier, without making them taste healthier. They attempted the same thing last year with their line of whole grain Pop-Tarts, which were good, but had a slightly off-putting, grainy texture. This Pop-Tarts variation doesn’t have that same texture, despite having the same amount of whole grains, but its crust did seem a little more fragile.

Even with five grams of fiber and 16 grams of whole grains, it tasted exactly like regular Frosted Chocolate Fudge Pop-Tarts. It had a great chocolate flavor and if you were to give one of these to a 13-year-old version of me, I definitely wouldn’t know that it has 20% of my daily recommended intake of fiber. Although if I ate all eight pastries in one sitting, I would definitely know I consumed 160% of my daily recommended intake of fiber. And so would the people around me.

If that does happen, I hope I’m not near a torch.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 pastry – 190 calories, 5 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 250 milligrams of sodium, 34 grams of carbohydrates, 5 grams of fiber, 14 grams of sugar, 3 grams of protein, and several vitamins and minerals.)

Item: Kellogg’s 20% Fiber Frosted Chocolate Fudge Pop-Tarts
Price: $3.79
Size: 8 pastries
Purchased at: Star Market
Rating: 9 out of 10
Pros: Tastes like regular Frosted Chocolate Fudge Pop-Tarts. Great chocolate taste. Sixteen grams of whole grain in each pastry. Provides 20% of my daily intake of fiber in each pastry. Vitamin and minerals.
Cons: Contains high fructose corn syrup. Crust is slightly more fragile that regular Pop-Tarts. Being excited about fiber. Eating an entire box of these Pop-Tarts. Low-carb pasta and low-carb bread. Flatulence and fire.

REVIEW: Kellogg’s Raisin Bran Extra!

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I’m disappointed in the new Kellogg’s Raisin Bran Extra!, but not because of its taste. I’m disappointed by its use of the exclamation point, which is a symbol that expresses surprise, anger, pain and how hard you’re ROFL!!!!!!

The use of the exclamation point has got me dismayed for two reasons:

1. I was hoping the cereal would contain something extra beyond the extra because of the exclamation point.

2. I don’t know whether or not to shout the word “Extra” whenever I say the cereal’s name.

To clarify my first reason, I was basically hoping for a toy in the box, but there wasn’t any found, unless you consider the ingredient pyridoxine hydrochloride fun. I know what you’re thinking, I’m a little too old for a toy. While that maybe true, I’ll never be too old for a surprise. Besides toys don’t have to be cheap plastic figurines made in China, they could also be cheap plastic electronics made in China. The Raisin Bran Extra! box may be small, measuring 10″ high and 6.5″ wide, but it’s still big enough to fit shitty digital cameras, crappy cell phones, or Microsoft Zunes.

But alas, there were no toys in the box of Raisin Bran Extra! There were just things you might find in a homemade trail mix or on the floor in the self-serve natural foods aisle at your local grocery store: bran flakes, cranberries, raisins, yogurty clusters, and almond slices.

Compared with the raisins found in regular Raisin Bran, the raisins in this cereal were smaller and lacked the traditional Raisin Bran white sugary coating. The cranberries weren’t noticeable since they were hard to distinguish from the raisins in both looks and taste. The almonds didn’t provide any flavor. All they did was provide some crunchy texture after the bran flakes got soggy. As for the yogurt clusters, they were probably the only ingredient that brought some flavor to the table — adding a nice vanilla sweetness.

The overall flavor of the cereal was all right and I would probably prefer it over regular Raisin Bran if it didn’t come in such a small box. The extra ingredients may not have done much for the flavor, but I think they made the cereal healthier. Cranberries have antioxidants, almonds are rich in monounsaturated fats and the yogurty clusters provided something that could’ve easily been chocolately clusters. Also, the additions helped increase the fiber content to seven grams per serving.

Oh wait. Lemme edit that last sentence.

Also, the additions helped increase the fiber content to seven grams per serving!

That’s better.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 cup – 190 calories, 3 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 350 milligrams of sodium, 140 milligrams of potassium, 44 grams of carbohydrates, 7 grams of dietary fiber, 13 grams of sugar, 24 grams of other carbohydrates, 5 grams of protein and a bunch of vitamins and minerals.)

Item: Kellogg’s Raisin Bran Extra!
Price: $7.89 (seriously)
Size: 14 ounces
Purchased at: Star Market
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Yogurty clusters provided a nice vanilla flavor to the cereal. Almonds and yogurty clusters gave the cereal a crunchy texture after the bran flakes got soggy. High in fiber.
Cons: No toy included. Almonds didn’t provide any flavor. Box is kind of small. Couldn’t distinguish cranberries from raisins. Raisins were smaller than those found in regular Raisin Bran. Slipping on spilled food in the self-serve natural foods aisle at your local grocery store. Contains high fructose corn syrup. Unsure reason for exclamation point in name.

REVIEW: Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats Chocolate Little Bites

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I’ll make love to you
Like you want me to
And I’ll hold you tight
Baby all through the night
I’ll make love to you
When you want me to
And I will not let go
‘Till you tell me to

I’ve never wanted to sing the chorus of the Boyz II Men song “I’ll Make Love To You” to a box of cereal before, until I tried the Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats Chocolate Little Bites, which is being marketed to kids. I would sing more than just the chorus if only I knew the rest of the song’s lyrics, because I keep getting the lines mixed up between this song, the other Boyz II Men hit, “On Bended Knee,” and Color Me Badd’s “I Wanna Sex You Up.”

Also, if I sang more I would be breaking a lot of windows with my voice. Not because it provides a high-pitch frequency to shatter glass, but because people will jump through windows to quickly get away from the sound that’s coming out of my mouth.

I won’t sing “I’ll Make Love To You” to just any box of cereal, despite what other cereal boxes, which I won’t name for fear of being snap, crackled or popped, might say about me. The Frosted Mini-Wheats Chocolate Little Bites are so good that I just want to stick my face into a bowl of it and lap it up like a dog after playing fetch the ball with Payton Manning.

When I bite into them it feels like there are small pieces of chocolate in each cereal biscuit, which is possible since the ingredients include semisweet chocolate chips. And I’m not talking about fake-ass mockolate. I’m talking about the real shit with cocoa butter. By keeping it real, the cereal tastes like little slices of chocolate cake and that’s why I sing:

I’ll make love to you
Like you want me to
And I’ll hold you tight
Baby all through the night
I’ll make love to you
When you want me to
And I will not let go
‘Till you tell me to

Not only does this cereal taste good, it’s also good for me because it has six grams of dietary fiber per serving, which is about one-fourth of the daily recommended intake of fiber. It’s also made with 100% whole grains, although because the cereal makes me want to spend a lot of money to get into its box, I think it might actually be made out of whore grains instead.

Perhaps the only characteristic I didn’t like about the Frosted Mini-Wheats Chocolate Little Bites was its name, which was confusing. Each piece of cereal was nearly half the size of regular Frosted Mini-Wheats, but its name didn’t articulate that because I tend to think that “little” is bigger than “mini.” If the iPod has taught me anything, besides not sticking my Belle & Sebastian collection on it so that people won’t think I’m a pussy, it’s that items from small to smallest should be named mini, nano, and shuffle.

I really hope Kellogg’s never decides to discontinue their Frosted Mini-Wheats Chocolate Little Bites because it’s so good and so good for me that if they did halt production of it I would have to start singing the Boyz II Men song, “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday.”

(Nutrition Facts – About 52 biscuits – 200 calories, 2 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0.5 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 0.5 grams of monounsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 200 milligrams of sodium, 270 milligrams of potassium, 45 grams of carbohydrates, 6 grams of fiber, 12 grams of sugar, 27 grams of other carbohydrates, 5 grams of protein, and a bunch of vitamins and minerals.)

Item: Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats Chocolate Little Bites
Price: $6.29
Size: 14.5 ounces
Purchased at: Star Market
Rating: 10 out of 10
Pros: Tastes like little slices of chocolate cake. Six grams of fiber per serving. Made with 100% whole grain. Contains real semisweet chocolate. A bunch of vitamins and minerals. Tastes best when eaten without milk.
Cons: Name is confusing. Milk kind of weakens its taste. Being caught with Belle & Sebastian on my iPod. My singing.

REVIEW: Kellogg’s High School Musical Cereal

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If you have children, whatever you do, DO NOT buy them the High School Musical Cereal. Some of you might be thinking I don’t like this packaged Kellogg’s and Disney collaboration because it promotes the third movie in the High School Musical trilogy, which by the way makes me cringe more than Star Wars prequel trilogy, but people should avoid this cereal because it just isn’t any good. If this cereal actually jiggled my jollies, I’d be breaking out into an unnecessary song and dance number while eating it. Fortunately for my overworked jazz hands, the cereal just flat out sucks, which boggles my mind since the recipe for a good sugary cereal is simple: pick shapes, pick colors, and add a fucking lot of sugar (marshmallow are optional). It’s like the person who developed this bland cereal forgot the very important step of putting a shitload of sugar in it, which is the equivalent of taking a piss without doing the necessary step of pulling down your pants or lifting up your skirt. The orangy and red star-shaped cereal pieces even have white specks all over them, which I thought was sugar, but didn’t make it sugary, so I’ll just assume the cereal has dry scalp and a bad case of dandruff. Shouldn’t the cereal that promotes a sugary sweet Disney movie be just as annoyingly sweet? Maybe I’m asking for too much, but I did ask for a nude picture of Vanessa Hudgens to end up on the internet and eventually one was posted, so why can’t I get a cereal with enough sugar to help me keep up with retiree mall walkers in the morning?

Buying this cereal is not only a bad idea because eating it feels like there’s a boring discussion of 18th century European economics going on in your mouth, it’s also a possible gateway item for much worse things your kid would want you to purchase. If you give into this, then they’ll next be asking for the High School Musical 3 soundtrack; then a DVD of the movie when it comes out four months later; and then they’ll be asking you to record the previous High School Musical movies playing on the Disney Channel on your TiVo, forcing you to delete the episodes of Heroes you haven’t gotten to yet because you’re too busy accommodating every whim from your demanding Disney-loving child, who ironically was conceived in a room at a Disney World Resort during some kinky Mickey and Minnie Mouse role playing. Before you know it, your kid is screaming at you because you ruined their sweet sixteen party that you allowed to be recorded for a reality show, because you bought them a Mercedes-Benz instead of a teal flying unicorn that does their homework and poops ancient Aztec gold, making you look like the worst parent in the world.

Although you could buy this for your child, they say “thank you,” and follow that up with a warm hug that melts your heart and makes you feel like the greatest parent in the world.

If you do decide to buy the cereal, let me know how that game of Russian Roulette goes.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 cup – 110 calories, 1 gram of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 170 milligrams of sodium, 35 milligrams of potassium, 24 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 9 grams of sugar, 13 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of protein, a whole lot of vitamins and minerals, 2 future shitty pop singers, and 1 future College Musical trilogy.)

(Editor’s Note: I’m not the only one who thinks this cereal sucks. Also, here’s a movie review of High School Musical 3: Senior Year. Just in case you’re forced to see it.)

Item: Kellogg’s High School Musical Cereal
Price: $2.49
Size: 9 ounces
Purchased at: Star Market
Rating: 3 out of 10
Pros: Crunchy. No singing coming out from the box. Vitamins and minerals. Asking for a nude photo of Vanessa Hudgens to end up on the internet and getting it. Being the greatest parent in the world.
Cons: Bland. Box is kind of small compared with other sugary cereals. Not as sugary sweet as a High School Musical movie. White specks don’t seem to add anything to cereal. My overworked jazz hands. Being the worst parent in the world. Having to erase stuff on your TiVo you haven’t gotten around to watching yet.

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