How to Make a Marshmallow Pop
Valentine Gifts for the Five Senses
Self-Medicating with Magical Food
When Should Bars Cut You Off?
Sausage Recipes of the Month
Making Chocolate from Wild Cacao
By: Kellogg’s
I Paid: $3.69 for an 11.2-ounce box (prices may vary by region)
There’s something profoundly jarring about the concept of big Rice Krispies; one of the essential aspects of the cereal has always been its tiny, featherlike, blow-away nature. Why mess with a legend?
If recent commercials are any indicator, you mess with a legend so that the millions of little baby hands that now grasp Cheerios with almost total exclusivity will grip and eat Jumbo Multi-Grain Krispies instead.
In many ways, aiming for the baby segment is a wise move for Kellogg’s: It establishes a new niche, challenges a rival on its home turf, and avoids the awkward fact that no adult with functioning taste buds is actually going to choose to eat these things.
Jumbo Multi-Grain Krispies suffer from Generic Cereal Cornmeal Syndrome, an affliction that causes cheap knockoff cereals to have a powdery texture that turns into a gluelike mess when exposed to milk. The beauty of classic Rice Krispies is their diatomaceous structure, a skeletal approach to cereal design that makes for a light, crisp, milk-permeable breakfast. Jumbo Multi-Grain Krispies are built much more like biodegradable packing peanuts: little beige turds of grain that quickly get milk-logged.
Your infant won’t eat cereal with milk. But for adults, the pastiness problem may be a deal-killer.
By: General Mills
I Paid: $3.69 for a 10.9-ounce box (prices may vary by region)
With the launch of Banana Nut Cheerios, General Mills has decided to play with its winning formula and position itself squarely for … well, it’s not entirely clear. Possibly for the not necessarily lucrative “people who want to eat banana bread for breakfast” market?
The Cheerios—which are whole grain—come on strong and furious with an assertive banana taste that lingers after the cereal has been swallowed. If you’re a banana fan, you’ll be pleased: It’s a relatively natural flavor, not a nasty dose of Runts-style artificial banana. The Cheerios themselves are a little less robust than their conventional cousins, and thankfully not overwhelmingly imbued with a whole-grain aftertaste or undertone. Other than the banana blast, they’re light on the palate and complement milk quite pleasantly.
If you’ve got family members on a steady Cheerios/Honey Nut Cheerios breakfast rotation, throwing in the Banana Nut variety is guaranteed to elicit a confused and impassioned reaction, one way or the other. As to whether the cereal becomes a pantry regular, that’s something that will have to be considered one banana-lover at a time.
Ok. I didn't even know about the Jumbo Krispies and now I don't even want to give them a glance. LOL "little beige turds of grain". Thanks for that laugh. So I'm guessing they won't make very good rice crispie treats either.
I LOVE Banana Nut Cheerios! In fact, I'm enjoying a bowl right now. I'm a big fan of banana products, but not necessarily candy-flavoring banana products (Blue Sky Ice Cream, I'm looking at you, and that's not my only beef, you still owe me $400, jerk.). My husband, who loves bananas but dislikes banana flavored products, also enjoyed them, although not with my level of voracity. I like that it...+READ
I LOVE Banana Nut Cheerios! In fact, I'm enjoying a bowl right now. I'm a big fan of banana products, but not necessarily candy-flavoring banana products (Blue Sky Ice Cream, I'm looking at you, and that's not my only beef, you still owe me $400, jerk.). My husband, who loves bananas but dislikes banana flavored products, also enjoyed them, although not with my level of voracity. I like that it is reminiscent of banana bread, and the nut flavor comes across as more of a warm taste, rather than a bowl of milk over Planters.
I also enjoy their quiet marketing strategy--not in your face all the time, like the Rice Krispies campaign. I actually heard about them in the cereal aisle from a set of new(ish) parents. Ahh, kids food...-COLLAPSE
I received a free sample of the banana nut cheerios with my newspaper yesterday, and was surprised they weren't too bad. For a sweetened cereal.
Oh, they're horrible! I don't understand what they did to make them so horrible. I like regular rice krispies, but I'll certainly never get these ones again. Even my kids wouldn't eat them!