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Welcome to week 2 of the German cereals! Thanks again to our friend, Creature!

This week it’s Seitenbacher Kakao-Düsis, a turbine shaped cocoa cereal that smells really horrible and tastes equally so. That taste? It’s spelt, which Poppy can’t be bothered to remember from week to week, but thanks to wikipedia for the definition:

Spelt (Triticum spelta) is a hexaploid species of wheat. Spelt was an important staple in parts of Europe from the Bronze Age to medieval times; it now survives as a relict crop in Central Europe and northern Spain and has found a new market as a health food.

Seitenbacher is famous for its Müsli cereals, sold as health conscious and natural. Too bad their Kakao-Düsis smells like dog food… and tastes even worse. We might recall by now that Poppy loves healthy cereals in general, but not this one. Dog biscuits taste better. DOG BISCUITS TASTE BETTER, PEOPLE.

Nutrition information is as follows per 30 gram serving: 108 calories, 3 grams protein, 22 grams Total Carbohydrates, 3 grams Fruit Sugar, 0.9 grams Total Fat, 0 milligrams Cholesterol, 3 grams Dietary Fiber, and 2 milligrams Sodium. Ingredients: spelt, fruit sugar, and de-oiled cocoa.

Congratulations for being “100% spelt” (presumably, as in, no other grain was used in the making of this product), high in fiber, and containing real fruit sugar, but your cereal is so inedible that Poppy refused to eat a second bite.

The only bowl given is for the shape of the cereal — turbine!

Taste: Dog food
Box opening: No box, just a bag
Bag rippage: No rip, but I used scissors
Bag slippage: None
Sog factor: It sogged out on the edges only, the center remained crunchy, but no one wants to eat it either way
Allergy alert: Wheat

Poppy’s Cereal Wednesday Bowls:

NYCWD’s Cereal Wednesday Bowls:

For more information about Kakao-Düsis visit Seitenbacher!

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Rice Krispies Treats® Chocolatey Crunch Mix is a new snack item by Kellogg’s. It contains Rice Krispies Treats® clusters, mini chocolate chip cookies, cocoa balls, fudge covered pretzel twists, mini pretzel twists, and cocoa buttons.

To say that this snack resembles Rice Krispies or its Rice Krispies Treats® dessert is a bit of a stretch to my tastebuds. The Treat is dry, and the ingredients lists supports my theory that real marshmallows are not involved whatsoever in making the Rice Krispies Treat® cluster. There’s no marshmallow listed. What’s in a marshmallow? Gelatin. That’s its binding glue. And there’s no mention of gelatin, animal or vegetable variety, in the ingredients list. No glue equals dry, unenjoyable “Treat”. Even the Rice Krispies Treats® sold by Kellogg’s as a to-go snack specifically list marshmallows in the ingredients list.

The cocoa ball tastes like Cocoa Krispies, which are yummy. The fudge covered pretzel is kinda to die for and if they want to sell me a whole bucket of those I’ll have to politely refuse so that I don’t grow 10 dress sizes (as if I wear a dress, but you know what I mean). The cocoa buttons I could do without. The mini pretzel is neutral for me, just kinda filler. I forgot the cookie was even in there, so it’s not memorable, other than the fact that each cookie is sliced in 2, probably to prevent a choking hazard.

And the nutrition information…

Oh, my it seriously lacks much that’s good for you. No vitamins and mineral percentages worth mentioning. No fiber. Hardly any protein. Whole grains are mentioned, but half the carb count is sugar. This is purely a treat, no value to a well balanced diet.

I adore Rice Krispies.

I adore Rice Krispies Treats®.

I adore the fudge covered pretzels in Rice Krispies Treats® Chocolatey Crunch Mix.

I way less than adore Rice Krispies Treats® Chocolatey Crunch Mix.

Cereal Wednesday Bowls:

For more information about Rice Krispies Treats® Chocolatey Crunch Mix visit the Kellogg’s Convenience Store Team site.

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Honey Bunches of Oats with Pecan Clusters is a corn and wheat flake cereal with oat cluster by Post. The pecans are finely chopped, coated in sweetness, and added to the oat cluster. The flavor of the flakes is subtle, while the oat cluster tastes very sweet like a pecan pie. Not as good as a pecan pie, unfortunately for Honey Bunches of Oats. Also unfortunately for HBoO is that the size of their bunches is inconsistent and some are way too large to fit down a throat without being chewed up. Not good for unsupervised consumption by the kiddos!

The nutrition in Honey Bunches of Oats with Pecan Clusters left much to be desired:

Box opening difficulty, lackluster flavor, soggies, choking hazard, tons of allergens, and not enough nutrition to bounce back from all the other negatives result in a low rating for Honey Bunches of Oats with Pecan Clusters. And I implore you, Post: make the clusters consistently smaller or add a choking hazard to your packaging!

Taste: Like Corn Flakes with clusters of inferior pecan pie
Box opening: It ripped
Bag rippage: None
Bag slippage: None
Sog factor: Ew.
Allergy alert: Contains wheat, pecan, and milk; manufactured on equipment that processes soy

Cereal Wednesday Bowls:

For more information about Honey Bunches of Oats with Pecan Bunches visit the Post website.

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Nathan’s International July Fourth Hot Dog Eating Contest is a yearly event held at the Coney Island Nathan’s Famous location. Each year competitors do their best to eat the most Nathan‘s hot dogs in 10 minutes. This year Joey Chestnut defended his championship by eating 54 dogs in 10 minutes, which sadly was nowhere near this year’s prediction of surpassing his best of 68 dogs to consume 70 in ten minutes. And you know what was missing this year? Stiff competition. Previously his competitor Takeru Kobayashi was standing next to him eating dogs, trying to oust native Californian Chestnut of his title. This year Kobayashi had a labor dispute (he wanted more money for his eating appearances) so was ineligible to compete, allowing Chestnut the easy victory over any of the other competitors who have never come close to Chestnut‘s numbers. Some here at Cereal Wednesday speculate that Chestnut won with 54 dogs while Kobayashi watched from the crowd because that is precisely how many dogs Kobayashi consumed to win his last title in 2006 before Chestnut came back in 2007 with a 66-dog upset over Kobayashi. (And perhaps that is why Kobayashi walked onto the stage after the competition and got himself arrested…)

Fascinating stuff. But what does that have to do with cereal? Well, in honor of the July Fourth competition, both NYCWD and I have agreed to enter into our own red, white, and blue adorned Special K Blueberry eating contest! Who wins? You have to watch to find out. But here’s a hint: NYCWD thought it tasted like CRAP while Poppy thought it tasted like CRACK.

Kellogg’s Special K Blueberry is a wheat and rice based cereal with blueberry oat clusters. It contains both natural and artificial blueberry flavor. The flakes are very hearty, very solid, and are coated with blueberry flavor. They taste more like natural blueberries than their artificial counterpart.

Nutrition stacks up as follows:

Surprisingly, Kellogg’s skimped on glue to hold the bag in the box so Special K Blueberry gets a deduction for the bag slip from Poppy. NYCWD hates the taste of the cereal completely so threw it one bowl for being patriotic in packaging.

Happy birthday to one of our biggest little fans, Thomas! We <3 U!

Taste: Like real blueberries wrapped in rice and oats (Poppy)… or, crap (NYCWD)
Box opening: Fine
Bag rippage: None
Bag slippage: Fell into the bowl
Sog factor: “50%”
Allergy alert: Wheat ingredients

NYCWD’s Cereal Wednesday Bowls:

Poppy’s Cereal Wednesday Bowls:

For more information about Kellogg’s Special K Blueberry please visit the Special K site.

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Shamrocks and Shenanigans! It’s a St. Paddy’s Day episode of Cereal Wednesday co-starring NYCWD and Poppy!

Today your fearless Cereal Avengers taste test Chocolate Lucky Charms with swirled marshmallow charms. This General Mills cereal is corn based, unlike its original Lucky Charms counterpart which is oat based. Strangely enough, Chocolate Lucky Charms manages to taste just like the rice-based Cocoa Krispies. It has the same fun shapes of regular Lucky Charms, with a few swirly marshmallows added to the mix.

Since General Mills does it best, here’s their nutrition information for Chocolate Lucky Charms:

Highlights on the box include the good source of Calcium and Vitamin D and the Whole Grain Guarantee of 8g or more per serving of whole grain as recommended by the Whole Grains Council.

While Watchdog said this cereal tastes great, Poppy said this cereal was just a copycat that wasn’t even able to make its milk taste good. A wildly different opinion from your favorite cereal eaters? Shamrocks and shenanigans, say it isn’t so! (Nah, kidding, it’s totally so.)

Taste: Just like Cocoa Krispies…
Box opening: Easy
Bag rippage: A tiny bit, because it was tough to open.
Bag slippage: Totally felt out of the box!
Sog factor: From crunchy to perfect in 2 minutes
Allergy alert: No allergans!
Meat alert: Contains gelatin, a meat based product

Watchdog’s Cereal Wednesday Bowls:


Poppy’s Cereal Wednesday Bowls:

For more information about the cereal please visit the General Mills website.

Erin go bragh! (That’s Irish for “Have a good one!”;)

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As of today, 01/28/2009, Quaker Peanut Butter And Chocolate Granola Bars have NOT been placed on the FDA Recall List for the Salmonella Typhimurium contamination of Peanut Butter. For a complete list of recalled products please visit the FDA Website or you can follow the FDA Recalls on Twitter @FDArecalls.

While breakfast is still generally accepted as the most important meal of the day, the truth is that most Americans don’t take the time to actually eat it. One of the biggest breakfast replacements are granola bars such as the ones made by the Quaker Oats company. I mean hey… they make oatmeal… so why not a good breakfast substitute in the form of a granola bar?

As a connoisseur of mixing chocolate and peanut butter together, this was a huge disappointment to me. There never seemed to be a moment when I was able to get both the chocolate and peanut butter tastes to merge in my mouth for a truly satisfying flavor. The worst part of the experience was that the peanut butter tasted like a stale processed paste that someone had left out on a hot day in July down in Georgia. Yes… basically the devil came to the granola bar.

At a very reasonable 100 calories, this can be an enjoyable snack midday but this really can’t be a substitute for a meal. Now if only Quaker would do something about the taste.

Taste: Bleh X 2
Box opening: No problem
Bag rippage: The wrapper comes off very easily… its quite slutty in fact
Bag slippage: N/A
Sog factor: N/A
Allergy alert: Contains Wheat, Milk, Peanut, and Soy ingredients.

Cereal Wednesday Bowls:

For more information about Quaker Peanut Butter And Chocolate Granola Bars please visit the Quaker Product Page.

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