REVIEW: Chex Mix Muddy Buddies

Chex Mix Muddy Buddies

As a culture, we love food stuffed with more food inside. Witness offerings of pizza crusts with molten cheese in the middle, the obligatory jalapeno poppers with your 2-for-1 margaritas, mozzarella encased inside hamburgers, chili piped into hot dogs, pretzel bits inside M&M’s, bourgeois slanted artisan olives with sardines and the Noah’s Ark of gluttony: The Turducken. So it is only natural that we want our Chex cereal entombed in chocolate and peanut butter as well.

The ubiquitous Chex Mix is perhaps one of the easiest things to prepare but as a society we’ve become too busy to be bothered to mix things in a bowl. And why should we? We’re busy people damn it! And we’re also a fickle population since there are more than a dozen varieties of Chex Mix available to fit your personality (the package touts “A bag of interesting!” and we want to be a Goddamned bag of interesting). We want efficiency, instant gratification, and a snack that is easy to fist in our maws as we multitask. Yay Betty Crocker and General Mills!

Walking into my neighborhood convenience store to scarf down a breakfast burrito with pebbles of sausage, I found the Chocolate Chex Mix Muddy Buddies staring at me. Muddy Buddies? I have to admit; the name is horrible because it sounds like a coy reference to anal sex. I will let you know that this Chex Mix is neither interesting nor as exciting as anal sex (if you’re into that stuff) but it’s pretty damn good. I normally think that the bagged snack is sometimes too salty and the chocolate line is a bit too sweet for my liking. However, the “Muddy Buddies” version is a good balance of sweet and a hint of salt.

I’ve only found this in the small 4.5 ounce bags at a gas station and at $2.29, I was taking a personal fiscal risk. My assumption is if these become successful, they will probably bring them in the normal size at the supermarkets. These Chex Mix fall in their “chocolate” subset versus the normally found “salty” and the “sweet and salty” groups. In other words, these particular ones may be a bit more difficult to find.

Yeah…I’m not making this up. Chex Mix created its own three subgroups just to make it even more convenient for you — Chocolate, Salty, and Sweet and Salty. I have this urge to draw you readers a Venn diagram, but that’s my OCD talking.

Chex Mix Muddy Buddies Innards

Speaking of OCD, ripping open the package was a bit alarming since the sweet powdery coating is so severe. You would think Brian De Palma is filming a sequel to Scarface in each bag. I was worried I would be covered in the sugar, but the powder doesn’t flake off. So you can wear your black clothes, chow down and you won’t look like you have dandruff or a major coke problem. Aren’t cocaine problems passé anyhow? I also thought the sugary powder would overtake the Chex, but it doesn’t. It nicely compliments the chocolate and the peanut butter.

The texture has a very slight give and then that satisfying crunch that will elate you enough to eat the whole bag. The Chex are deceptively small and at 130 calories for a basic handful does it really matter that it’s “50% less fat than regular potato chips” as the bag screams? I found myself devouring the entire thing while watching only a fourth of Cheaters. Seriously, Joey Greco didn’t even get to show the video yet to the girlfriend with big hair.

The chocolate flavor is very much in the background and what you mostly taste is peanut butter and corn Chex. The peanut butter is resoundingly good as it doesn’t have that fake taste like that peanut butter crunch cereal nor is it overwhelming like a peanut butter cup. It’s quick, and then it leaves you. Nice. As I stated before, no one flavor alone takes over and it is a simple harmonious bite. It’s Yin and Yang in your mouth. Not sure if it is a bag of interesting but you could do worse, like butt sex.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/3 cup – 130 calories, 40 calories from fat, 4.5 grams of total fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 50 milligrams of sodium, 20 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of dietary fiber, 9 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.)

Item: Chex Mix Muddy Buddies
Price: $2.29
Size: 4.5 ounces/4.5 servings in each bag coincidentally
Purchased at: At a scary 7-Eleven where all the gas pumps have yellow bags on them
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: A great balance of flavors, especially since peanut butter can drown everything. Satisfying snack. Joey Greco. Sugar doesn’t flake off, so members of Rammstein or The Cure can eat it without looking as if they had a coke habit. Brian De Palma’s movies.
Cons: You will not be a bag of interesting but you will eat the whole damn thing without knowing it. A bit pricey for a small bag. Butt sex.

17 thoughts to “REVIEW: Chex Mix Muddy Buddies”

  1. From what I’ve seen in porn, anal sex is exciting. The women I’ve seen in those adult films seem to enjoy it. Although it’s so exciting that I will probably not attempt it. I have probably given too much information in this comment.

    1. In my experience, you don’t even need to decide whether you’d be interested or not, because the woman will make it clear preemptively that it is Not Going To Happen.

      Anyway, nice review, Jeff! If you’re lucky, maybe Chex will use that as their slogan. “Muddy Buddies: like butt sex! If you’re into that!”

  2. Yum, another chocolate/peanut butter, sweet/salty snack. Good review, first stop in this morning, 7-11.

  3. We used to make this at home all the time (the choc/pb Chex Mix, not the butt sex) but we called it Puppy Chow. Which is probably already copywrited. So butt sex… err… Muddy Buddies is it!

    1. Muddy Buddies is what they (used to?) call it on the back of the Chex box, but mostly I’ve heard it referred to as Puppy Chow as well.

      Except for our grocery store. For some reason, they’ve decided it’s People Chow(?).

      1. I work in a grocery store, and I’ve heard that our store labels it as puppy chow because one woman fed it to her dog and was angry at the store when it got sick.

  4. Another common name for the homemade version is White Trash. Probably wouldn’t fly on the store shelf either.

  5. angry bob just got back and you’re already bringing up angry bob’s cocaine problem? Also, angry bob doesn’t have a cocaine problem. And angry bob isn’t passe. No, angry bob doesn’t know how to make the little diacritical marks in his comments. All this typing makes angry bob angry.

  6. Despite your apparent mixed feelings on the topic of anal, I liked your review. Glad to see another quality reviewer joining the team.

  7. congrats on your first review. I picked up a 10.5 oz bag today at lunch and am immensely tempted to eat the whole bag. Technically I would prefer a solid coating since I think the powder is bordering on a bit much, but overall, I dig the crunch + peanut butter combo.

  8. First of all, Jeff needs to wash his mind out with soap. Nobody uses ‘muddy buddies’ as a euphemism for that. Except for the guy who sits around trying to think up new ways to turn innocuous phrases into sexual innuendos for urban dictionary.

    Secondly, Muddy Buddies are really the best thing ever made by Chex Mix. I just finished a whole bag and am seriously contemplating opening a second. Of course homemade puppy chow is better but if everyone made the homemade version of what they buy, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we? The only actual cons for Muddy Buddies is that they are very difficult to find but I get mine from 7-11 as well.

    1. Um…I find it funny you’re arguing that no one uses the term “muddy buddies” that way by beginning your comment with a phrase nobody uses. Who uses the term “wash his mind out with soap”? I Googled the phrase and the first reference I came up with was your comment.

      So congratulations, you’re the pot who just called the kettle black.

  9. I was walking on the streets of NYC, and noticed in a store window a little puppy. This puppy got me very hungry, so i went and prucahsed a pack of Muddy Buddies. Here are my thoughts…

    Pros:
    It is a Betty Crocker Prodcuts
    It’sugar!!!!!
    And I loveeeee sugar!!!!
    Cons:
    There a 45 cals from FAT.
    It says “cookie crumbs” in the ingredients, yet i didnt taste no cookie 🙁

Comments are closed.