Thus far here at Cereal Wednesday, Life Cereal has a record of 2-1. Both the Original Life Cereal and Life: Maple Brown & Sugar scored pretty high with Four Bowls each. The weakest of the bunch seemed to be Life Cereal With Chocolate Oat Clusters that scored a whopping One Bowl.

Sadly, not unlike the New York Mets on their post-season opportunity for the second year in a row, Life Honey Graham is a cereal that seems intent on making you choke. Calling it Honey Graham is a little misleading… perhaps Graham Graham would be a more fitting description.

Of course the flavor of the cereal is just one of the factors that we consider here at Cereal Wednesday. As for opening the box, Life Honey Graham had an excellent package that maintained its integrity for potential resealing. Sadly, the bag inside did not fare as well. The bag actually ripped vertically down the side, meaning that sealing the bag would be harder to do properly and therefore the cereal may not stay as fresh as it would if the bag had opened properly.

The spoon in the bowl for this cereal was its quick sog factor. Soggy cereal that flavors the milk with that of a stale cookie is NOT something I could with a good conscious recommend to anyone. While normally it may only rate One Bowl for these atrocities, I do have to give it credit for being a wheat based cereal and providing a decent selection of vitamins and minerals that I personally may not otherwise get. Therefore we’re giving it Two Bowls today.

So Quaker Life Cereal is averaging a 2.75 Overall Bowls rating. C’mon Quaker, you can do better than this!

The Poppy Scale of Cereal

Taste: A dash of sweet honey with an overbearing graham flavor
Box opening: Very easy with no damage
Bag rippage: Vertical rippage where it doesn’t belong
Bag slippage: Serious slippage
Sog factor: Uber high – very quick to sog out
Allergy alert: Contains wheat ingredients

Cereal Wednesday Bowls:

For more information about the cereal please visit the Life Cereal website.

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Today a very special guest joins NYCWD for cereal at the airport – none other than Poppy’s Mom! Also worth a mention is the cameo appearance by Poppy’s legs when she shakily pans down to give you a closer look at the cereal.

Quaker Life Maple & Brown Sugar is a new flavor of Life, although not a new flavor to the Quaker line. The Quaker Oats company was founded in 1901 and its famous (at least in New England) Maple and Brown Sugar Oatmeal has been around for NYCWD and Poppy’s entire lives, but the Life version was just introduced in 2008.

Life Maple & Brown Sugar is made with whole grain oats and is saturated fat free and cholesterol free, qualifying it as one of PepsiCo’s 250 Smart Choices Made Easy products. Per 3/4 cup serving this cereal packs 120 calories, 1.5 grams total fat, 2 gram of dietary fiber, 3 grams of protein, and some pretty high vitamin and mineral counts: 25% Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, Vitamin B6, and Zinc; 50% Iron; and 100% Folic Acid.

Poppy’s Mom is quite partial to maple and brown sugar, so it’s no surprise she enjoyed this quite a bit. The taste was subtle, not too overpowering, but not so weak that the flavor was too vague to guess in a blindfold taste test. Unfortunately, the cereal sogged out quickly and the flavor of the cereal sogged out with it to the bottom of the bowl. But, soggy oat cereal is technically oatmeal, so just drink some of the milk out and you’ve got the cold version of an old favorite! (Bright side, bright side…)

If you enjoy maple and brown sugar hot oatmeal you’ll enjoy the cold cereal version.

Taste: Sweet, maple-y, sugary goodness
Box opening: Very easy
Bag rippage: No ripping
Bag slippage: No slipping
Sog factor: High – quick to sog out, turns pretty mushy
Allergy alert: Contains wheat ingredients

Cereal Wednesday Bowls:

For more information about the cereal please visit the Life Cereal website.

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This is one of the reasons why off shoot brands can be both disappointing, yet comforting. If you enjoy Life Cereal as it is, you’re not really diverting yourself from the taste. If you WERE looking for something different, then this really is not it at all.

Cereal Wednesday Bowls:

For more information you can visit the Official Life Cereal website.

The first thing you need to understand is that Life Cereal came out in 1961 amidst a plethora of cartoon creations and premium give aways in cereal. The competition was tough and they had to find a hook. In 1972 they launched a new ad campaign that would ingrain them into Iconic Americana. Life Cereal did not have any slick marketing ploy other than a little relationship bonding with their target audience… parents. Unlike Trix or Froot Loops, Life used a real person in the form of “Mikey” who was your average four year old who hated to eat anything… except for Life Cereal of course! What an ideal item to feed a finicky child!! What better a character for parents to get their kids to relate to than another finicky child!!!

Mikey was played by actor John Gilchrist. In the late 1970′s an urban myth spread that detailed the demise of the “unknown actor” who played Mikey, when he consumed the combination of Pop Rocks candy and Coca-Cola. While the company that made Pop Rocks candy tried to dispell the myth, it has pretty much stuck around even though Gilchrist did the 1986 commercial as “Uncle Mikey“. People, for whatever reason, refused to believe it was really him.

Such is the power not of marketing… but of Iconic Americana.

Cereal Wednesday Bowls:

For more information you can visit the Official Life Cereal website.