Special K Chocolatey Delight

Special K - the flagship of the Kellogg's "good for you" cereal brands - is now available in a heavily-sugared version which includes tiny little chocolate bars. 

For the record, even though they're almost as sweet as Cap'n Crunch, they're not all that bad - a good hearty whole grain flake with lots of crunch - but they're much more like Sugar Frosted Flakes with bits of Hershey Bar mixed in than traditional Special K. It's like Kellogg's just said, "Fuck it, just give 'em candy." 

Sacks of Breakfast Kibble

We've all heard that a big chunk of the price of name-brand breakfast cereal is the packaging and marketing that supports it. The stores in my area were late to the party when it came to bare-bones cereal packaging, though.  So it amused the hell out of me when I found Stop & Shop's store brand kid-cereal knockoffs being sold by the sack - at roughly one-third to one-quarter of the equivalent amount's price as sold by General Mills or Kellogg's.

It's NOT Free.

Quaker is running a promotion on selected boxes of Cap'n Crunch, offering a "FREE Retro T-Shirt."  Well, you have to send in 4 proofs of purchase and pay $3.49 for shipping and handling, but that's still "free," right?

There was a thrift store near me that used to sell T-shirts for 99 cents each. Every week, I'd scour the seemingly endless rack of black T's and pick out vintage concert and bike rally shirts which I would then sell on eBay.  I always priced shipping at $1.00, because a folded shirt would fit nicely into a Tyvek envelope which I could mail 1st Class for about $1.30 and that other 30 cents was more than taken care of by the sale price of the shirt.

But Quaker first makes you pay $16 to $20 for four boxes of cereal, and then charges an additional $3.50 for shipping "and handling."  Yeah, that's a hot freebie, that is.

You know what, Quaker?  Cap'n Crunch has been my favorite cereal since I was like 9 years old. That's a better than 40-year run (pretty damn good considering my usual attention span.) But if you think I'm going to PAY YOU to advertise your shit while you're pulling Cap'n Crunch advertisements out of the mainstream media, you're wrong.

New Kellogg's Crunchy Nut

Hey look! It's NEW! Kellogg's Crunchy Nut cereal, with Nuts in Every Bite!  (That is an important point.  Biting nuts just isn't worth it if one can't have nuts in every bite.)

I am totally not wowed by this cereal, which is basically a sugar-coated corn flake with little bits of peanuts glued in place by the sugar coating. There aren't enough peanuts to lend much flavor, and despite the cover art clearly depicting a honey dipper drooling with bee poop, they don't taste much like honey either.

What they do taste like is Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, i.e. nothing special. Because Crunchy Nut is new and Kellogg's is trying to get people to buy it, you're likely to find it on sale at your local supermarket and you should be able to find some coupons for it as well.  So if you have someone at home who likes Frosted Flakes, you might want to give them a try while they're really cheap.

And then, who knows?  Maybe stack the promotional sales with the coupons and stock up on enough of them to last you until they make it into the job lot stores when they're discontinued.

Lucky Charms

Andrew Green, author of the excellent blog Who Wants Taters? mentioned Lucky Charms in a comment. And I just happened to have a box of them in the pantry, so of course Andrew INVOKING them like that was like giving me a posthypnotic suggestion.  So yeah, I just had a bowl of Lucky Charms.

I used to like these when I was a kid. It seems that Dry Crumbly Marshmallow technology has come a long way since then.  Most of the marshmallow back then were white or, at best, some kind of solid color.  Nowadays, though... check it out, that's a rainbow!

I just noticed a minute ago that the cereal shapes are pretty interesting. I think they might be Satanic. Or they might be the result of an industrial accident at the Alpha-Bits factory. I'm sure that one of those scenarios would work.

Relax - Cap'n Crunch Is Sticking Around

Picture credit: Quaker Oats

Rumors have been flying all over the internet that PepsiCo, the parent company of Quaker Oats, is planning to discontinue Cap'n Crunch, the popular line of cereals introduced in the 1960's.

Apparently, an article published on DailyFinance.com noted that the cartoon-character mascot hasn't appeared in advertising since 2007 and speculated that perhaps PepsiCo was "retiring" him.  In typical Internet Grapevine style this became distorted in the retelling until the stories became that Quaker was going to cease production of the cereal.  

But fear not:  Cap'n Crunch will still be available to rip up the roof of your mouth for years to come, according to PepsiCo, which has this message from the Cap'n on his official website:

Thanks to everyone who was asking about me! I was out on the seas but don't worry, I'm back and not going anywhere. I'm excited to be on Facebook and Twitter - a brand new adventure for me!

According to marketing data, Cap'n Crunch is no longer the single most popular pre-sweetened cereal line out there (private labels and - believe it or not - new sugary versions of Cheerios have that distinction) but Quaker has no plans to ease the Cap'n into drydock.  Take a stroll down any supermarket aisle and you'll see.  The Cap'n Crunch lineup takes up more shelf space than the rest of the entire Quaker lineup combined.

Links:

Cap'n Crunch's website

The Cap'n on Facebook - bewareof imitators, there are about a million people with "Cap'n Crunch" Facebook pages.

Cap'n Crunch's Twitter stream

Breakfast with the Q: Quisp Cereal and a Quisp Omelet

If you're an old fart like me, you might have fond childhood memories of the original Quisp cereal. It was introduced in 1965 along with a companion cereal called Quake. Both of them were actually knock-offs of Cap'n Crunch - the same ingredients, flavor, and crunch as in the Cap'n, but in different shapes (Quisp was formed into little "flying saucers" and Quake was in the form of letter Qs.)  

Although eventually Quisp's popularity faded in the early 1970's and the cereal faded out of the national market, fans have long been nostalgic about it, and Quaker has never really pulled the plug on it.  Quisp has been available sporadically in test markets since the early 1980's, and it has also been "pop up marketed" by Quaker in an unusual way for a large corporation since the 1990's - A freestanding display would be set up in the cereal aisle of a supermarket, filled with boxes of Quisp, and remain until the display was sold out.  Quaker was able to keep interest in the cereal alive for quite awhile with this teasing sort of marketing unitl finally, in the early 2000s with the widespread use of this intertube doubleya-doubleya-doubleya-thing, Quisp became one of the first online-marketed cereals, consistently available through an online store.

I've always really like Quisp in no small part because, while it shares flavor and crunchability with Cap'n Crunch, it does not have the Cap'n's roof-of-the-mouth-destroying qualities (fans of Cap'n Crunch will know what I mean.)  I noticed the Quisp seemed to be returning to stores a couple of weeks ago, first appearing at the local Shop Rite and then showing up in Stop & Shop.  The box art references Quisp's reputation as a hard-to-find cereal, but also promises that it's going into wider distribution again, which is good news for fans.

It's also good news if you want to make a Quisp omelet.  Stop laughing.

Quisp Omelet
Serves 1

1 tablespoon butter
2 or 3 eggs as desired
Milk
Salt and pepper to taste
Mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup Quisp cereal

Melt butter in a skillet over medium-low heat until foamy.  Meanwhile, beat the eggs together with a splash of milk - just enough to temper the eggs, but not to dilute them.  Pour the eggs into the heated skillet and allow them to set slightly, pulling back the edges of the eggs to allow liquid egg to flow under the edges and start to cook.  Season the eggs to taste with salt and pepper.

When the eggs are starting to set and the top is getting tacky, sprinkle a line of mozzarella cheese down the center of the eggs.

Add half a cup of Quisp cereal.

Fold the sides of the omelet in to the center, wrapping the cereal and the cheese in a comfy blanket of egg.

Flip the omelet over briefly to cook the side with the fold, then remove to a plate and serve.

Enjoy your delicious Quisp omelet.

Ideally, the Quisp cereal should stay at least somewhat crunchy as it's folded into the omelet, but unfortunately the wet egg does have a bit of a tendency to seep in and soften the crunchiness out a bit.  Still, the sweetness of the Quisp lends a brown-sugar/honey sort of flavor to the omelet, which is really good served with sausage or ham.

Regarding Cheerios

Back when I was a kid, Cheerios were these little rings that tasted like they were made out of cardboard. People used to feed them to infants, apparently because not only are toddlers fascinated by them, but little cardboardy rings are hard for them to choke on.

Nowadays, Cheerios are still sold to people who want edible entertainment for their small children. But they are also sold to aging people as some sort of cardiac tonic, General Mills having managed to convince people that eating cereal and milk will cleanse their arteries of cholesterol.  I think it has something to do with "sympathetic magic."  The little rings represent cross-sections of unclogged arteries, and their powerful juju keeps the user healthy or something.

Anyway, in an effort to wring every last possible dollar out of an aging brand, General Mills has been introducing new Cheerios flavors willy-nilly.  I've tried them all, and even though I don't believe in magic, I have to admit that they taste good - even the ones that seem like knock-offs of competitors' products.  There are currently twelve varieties of Cheerios, two of which are Banana Nut and Chocolate.

And that is what this post is about: while Banana Nut and Chocolate Cheerios are individually pretty damn good, when they are mixed together in the bowl they are AWESOME.

Kellogg's Special K Red Berries

As a feature publisher for Foodbuzz, I participate in the Foodbuzz Tastemaker program, through which I'm occasionally sent samples of products to review.  Such was the case recently with Kellogg's Special K Red Berries cereal - Kellog's sent along two boxes of the cereal and asked that I try it out and let everyone know what I thought of it.

Maryanne, Lynnafred, and I all enjoy various cold cereals regardless of the time of year, so the Special K was a nice treat.  All of us liked the crunch and the sweet-tartness of the dehydrated strawberries that were sprinkled throughout the mix. Kellogg's is making a big deal of the nice big dose of fiber in every serving, which is hardly surprising since they've been emphasizing the healthy stool-moving qualities of dietary fiber for about a hundred years now, but when we buy a cereal we don't do it based on whether or not it will help us take a big healthy dump.  No, we look at these qualities:

• Is it delicious?
• Will it stay relatively crispy after the milk is poured?
• Will it carry us over for the six-plus hours from breakfast to lunch?

I'm happy to say that  Special K Red Berries succeeds on all three counts.

• It is delicious. The rice and wheat blend is quite tasty.and these grains are helped along by the generous amount of sugar (third on the ingredient list, just behind the rice and wheat) and seemingly-mandatory dollop of high-fructose corn syrup.  Even fans of Cap'n Crunch should need no added sugar to enjoy Red Berries.
• We noticed the Special K Red Berries cereal resisted sogginess somewhat better than the usual cereal flakes.  The red berries, however, delighted in soaking up milk to create soft, flavorful (and quite milky) berries.
• Special K Red Berries did a bang-up job of suppressing The Hungries all morning long.

Good stuff, and worth an addition to the morning lineup as long as you remember that these aren't in the same league as plain corn flakes or Cheerios.  I consider Special K Red Berries to be a "sugar cereal," and enjoy it as an occasional "treat" breakfast.
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Captain Crunch Shenanigans

Cap'n Crunch was my favorite cereal when I was a kid.  It still is, though I don't eat it very often these days, being a fat old guy who's trying somewhat successfully to shed some pounds.  

And then I found Cap'n Crunch's Crunch Treasures.  The front of the box promises that Crunch Treasures has "1/2 the sugar of regular Cap' Crunch."  Sounds good, right?  A lot of the flavor in Cap'n Crunch comes from brown sugar, so I figured that maybe Quaker cut back on the regular sugar - maybe replaced it with Splenda or something - to cut the sugar.  

Ha.  Maybe not.  Lynnafred and I compared the Nutrition Facts on a box of regular Cap'n Crunch with those on a box of Crunch Treasures, and what we found was pretty surprising:

By boldly announcing on the front of the box that Treasures contains half the sugar of regular Cap'n Crunch, Quaker is trying to make the consumer believe that Treasures is somehow better for you than regular Cap'n Crunch - as if that's possible with sugar-bombs like the Cap'n Crunch family of junk food.

Read down the labels with me:   Per serving, Treasures actually has more calories than regular Crunch (120 vs. 110.) Treasures is more heavily salted, too - 60mg more sodium.  But the biggest surprise is in the carbohydrate load.  Treasures really does has half the sugar (6g vs. 12g) but astonishingly it has almost double the "other carbohydrates!"  The end result is that Cap'n Crunch's Crunch Treasures has 26g of carbs compared to the original's 23g.  Half the sugar, yes, but the carb total is what really counts.

So, Quaker is totally full of shit with their marketing here.  Also, notice that the "$1.00 Pack" in the photo above contains 4 servings and 3.9 ounces of Crunch Treasures, while the original Cap'n Crunch contains 6 servings and 5.5 ounces at the same price.  All this does is blur the nutritional understanding for most customers.  Using the raw numbers, we find that per ounce, these two cereals are just about the same, with Original delivering 25g of carbs per ounce and Treasures about 27g.   Now, if your unit of measurement is "1 box," you start to see a difference, due mostly to the difference in weight between the two:  the Original Cap'n Crunch would deliver 138g of total carbohydrates if you at the whole damn box, whereas the  Crunch Treasures holds 104g.  Whew.  Maths are hard, my head is going to asplode.

The Important Part - How Does It Taste?

Okay, but to hell with all that carb counting and sugar auditing shit, this is CAP'N FRIGGIN' CRUNCH we're talking about and the only metric that matters is how it tastes when we OM NOM NOM.   How does it taste?  In a word, crappy.  Treasures has just a hint of Crunch's delicious brown sugar bouquet when it's chomped dry right out of the box.  But Cap'n Crunch is meant to be eaten in milk, and Crunch Treasures completely fails here.  The sweet tastes is totally overwhelmed and washed away by the milk, leaving it tasting a little like millet-flavored cardboard.  And in a further betrayal of the Cap'n Crunch promise (Stays crunchy even in milk!) the stuff gets soggy fast.

The verdict:  A soggy and solid "Meh."  Don't waste your money.  If you're going to blow your cash and your healthy blood glucose levels, you might as well go all out and enjoy the company of original Cap'n Crunch.  Crunch Treasures are worthless.

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