Tag: Post Cereals

REVIEW: Post Limited Edition Mint Chip Oreo O’s Cereal

Brandon Leave a comment

Cookie-based cereal is far from new. Cookie Crisp, the gold standard, has been filling our mornings with sweet, sweet sugar since 1977. In that almost half-century, it has tried its hand at multiple iterations—oatmeal, peanut butter, and sprinkles, to name a few.

Oreo O’s cereal, which came out 20 years later, is a relative youngster by comparison. It disappeared for a bit—well, everywhere except for South Korea—but came back in 2017. Over the years, Oreo has also messed about a bit by featuring an LTO Golden Oreo version and a “Mega Stuf” variety that incorporates creme-flavored marshmallows. But that’s it.

It’s interesting to me that a product known for endless flavors has been fairly conservative regarding the cereal version. Well, maybe the tide is turning, beginning with Mint Chip. In case you missed it, Mint Chip is the Oreo flavor of the moment. It is currently on shelves in cookie form and now as a cereal. So, is the cereal good enough to warrant branching out with new cereal varieties?

Here’s the deal — this cereal is quite minty. But unlike the deplorable Froot Loops Sherbet Scoops cereal I begrudgingly consumed for my last review (in case you missed it, it’s designed to “cool” your mouth), the mint here actually made sense. It was subtler than the mint of a Mint Oreo cookie but still noticeable and moderately enjoyable. (Really, how much you enjoy the mint in these is entirely contingent on how much you enjoy mint, you know?) I cannot, however, understand how this was mint chip and not just regular mint; the mint “flavor crystals,” for lack of a better term, were of a little “chippier” texture than the rest of the cereal, so, maybe that’s it. (Note: I have not tried the Mint Chip Cookie, though Sean recently reviewed it.)

The chocolate—which purports to be made of real Oreo cookie pieces—was predictably Oreo-wafer-like in taste. (That said, I don’t know how distinct the chocolate Oreo wafer taste truly is. It’s really when combined in concert with the creme that we get the cookie’s real essence.)

One thing that surprised me was how these held up in milk. The last bite was truly as crunchy as the first, a quality that is both terrifying and wonderful. On the one hand, I wish all of my favorite cereals had this sustainability, but I also shudder to think what petrification may be occurring with my internal organs.

While I found these Mint Chip Oreo O’s to be perfectly fine, I don’t feel compelled enough to buy them again. Now, if they’re interested in trying out a peanut butter version—peanut butter being the best Oreo variant by far—then sign me up.

Purchased Price: $4.93
Size: 16.5 oz box
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 160 calories, 2 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 210 milligrams of sodium, 34 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 17 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Post Limited Edition Fruity Pebbles Waffles Cereal

Julie 1 Comment

Every year, the end of July marks the moment I’m over summer and ready to be embraced by the sweet chill of autumn. Maybe it’s because my birthday is at the end of July (gifts are welcome), after which I have nothing to celebrate other than a full month ahead of sticky humidity and overly aggressive bees who have taken an unsettling interest in my daily activities. Regardless of the reason, now also marks the time that my favorite summer flavors—berry and lemon—enter the clearance aisle of my heart, making way for pumpkin, apple, and, best of all, maple.

Post Limited Edition Fruity Pebbles Waffles Cereal feels like the perfect product for this transition period, combining flavors of bright summer fruitiness with sweet maple syrup. Imagine two Post greats, Fruity Pebbles and Waffle Crisp, joined as one in the form of tiny waffle cereal pieces flecked with rainbow bits. Fred Flintstone has never given me a reason not to trust him, so I bought the (woolly?) mammoth Family Size box from Walmart.

I could smell the maple emanating from the box the moment I took it off the shelf. The scent was so strong that my cat inspected the unopened box for several minutes with a thoroughness he usually reserves for salmon. From the scent alone, I expected Waffle Crisp cleverly disguised by rainbow sprinkles, but I was surprised that the fruity cereal taste was at the forefront. That generic fruity flavor, which I find to be mostly citrusy with some cherry notes, is supported by a subtle toasted, buttery base. There is a slight maple flavor in the cereal, but, weirdly, it leaves a pronounced aftertaste.

While I would have loved a touch more maple, I could not stop eating this cereal. I particularly love its texture: crisp and crunchy without the airy chewiness of cereals that use primarily corn bases. (Fruity Pebbles Waffles Cereal uses both oat and corn.) Even in milk, the pieces keep their crunch. The texture alone makes me prefer this cereal to the original Fruity Pebbles and their tiny, sogginess-prone flakes.

Post Limited Edition Fruity Pebbles Waffles Cereal is a fun, novel twist on two old favorites. The flavors complement each other well enough to overcome the mash-up gimmick, resulting in a product that feels very much like its own thing worth trying while you can find it. Unlike the immortal Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble, this duo of flavors is only around for a limited time.

Purchased Price: $4.93
Purchased at: Walmart
Size: 19 oz – Family Size box
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (per 1 1/2 cup serving) 160 calories, 1.5 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 230 milligrams of sodium, 35 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 15 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein

REVIEW: Post Limited Edition Frosted Chocolate Cake Cereal

Julie 4 Comments

I’m curious. The last time you ate chocolate cake for breakfast, were you:

a) Enjoying a donut with sprinkles
b) Digging into your birthday cake early
c) Having a rough week and running out of hoots to give
d) Actually enjoying a chocolate cake-inspired cereal?

Maybe the more important question is, what will you do NEXT TIME you have run out of your typical breakfast or personal quota of hoots? While other actions are certainly acceptable, Post Limited Edition Frosted Chocolate Cake Cereal makes choice d) possible and just as appealing as buttercream at dawn.

It’s a shredded wheat-style cereal consisting of cocoa-flavored biscuits made with chocolate chips and topped with sugar coating. The product offers a decadent twist on the shredded wheat you may pair with fruit or yogurt. However, it still boasts the whole grains and fiber absent from the layered cake you were dreaming about hours earlier.

Typically, the Venn Diagram of Frosted Chocolate Cake and shredded wheat cereal do not overlap much. While I can be critical of products that do not live up to their flavor inspirations (seriously, not every strawberry-flavored product needs to be named Strawberry Shortcake!), this cereal does justice to its namesake while remaining a palatable breakfast option.

The crunchy biscuits have a strong cocoa flavor with a dusting of extra sweetness from the solid white icing. Within the layers of wheat, chocolate chips add delicious pops of texture and taste. Not every biscuit is blessed with a chocolate chip, which might be a metaphor for life. But when they are present, the chips have just a hint of fudgyness that is never overwhelming or cloying. Like many shredded wheat products, the biscuits soak up milk like a sponge and soften quickly, but the chocolate flavor doesn’t diminish.

For those keeping score, we have flavor, layers, and, if I’m reaching, spongelike properties. The cereal ticks one more box of a good chocolate cake: it is satisfying in large or small portions. One serving is 26 biscuits, a solid breakfast, and now feels like the right time to sneak in how much I love that these pillow-shaped pieces of shredded wheat cereal are called biscuits.

Post Limited Edition Frosted Chocolate Cake Cereal tastes almost exactly like the now-discontinued Kellogg’s Chocolate Frosted Mini Wheats Little Bites, even down to the chocolate chips embedded within the wheat. While the Kellogg’s product consisted of smaller biscuits (and less sugar per serving), the Post product is an excellent dupe. Whether you were a Little Bites fan or simply appreciate a quality chocolate cereal, consider snatching up a few boxes of Post’s limited edition product while you have the chance.

Purchased Price: $3.98
Size: 16 oz box
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (per 1 serving of 26 biscuits) 210 calories, 2.5 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 40 milligrams of sodium, 48 grams of carbohydrates, 6 grams of fiber, 18 grams of sugar, and 5 grams of protein

REVIEW: Honey Bunches of Oats Frosted Bunches Cereal

Mark 15 Comments

Post doesn’t release limited-edition Honey Bunches of Oats flavors very often, so when it does, pay attention!

Except this new Frosted Bunches variety, sadly, isn’t worth paying much attention to. Really, the most interesting part of the whole cereal is the wintry box with a yeti theme. (Why are yetis having a moment now?)

I happened to have the bottom half of a box of Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds, so I was able to make a few comparisons between the new one and the classic.

With “Frosted Bunches” as the name of this new cereal, I assumed the oat clusters would be different. And yet, I* can’t really taste a difference between the bunches. If they are different, I don’t know what it is.

(*See what I did there? “yet, I”? “yeti”?)

The real difference is actually in the flakes. All of them in the Frosted Bunches variety are lighter in color and sweeter. This cereal would be better called Honey Bunches of Oats Frosted Flakes instead of Frosted Bunches. So, basically, this is a sweeter version of regular Honey Bunches of Oats, and the nutrition facts bear that out.

And despite an extra dose of “Bunches” in this cereal’s name, it seems to have fewer, not more, bunches in the cereal itself.

Look, Honey Bunches of Oats has long been one of my favorite cereals, so I will gladly finish this box. But it is not significantly different from the regular varieties. I only notice the differences because I’m looking for them. The ingredient lists have mostly the same ingredients, just in a different order.

The differences are not significant enough for me to make it worth the extra sugar in this Frosted Bunches edition, mainly because the regular version has more textural and flavor contrasts.

This cereal might be boring, but I hope to see more exciting limited edition offerings from Honey Bunches of Oats in the future. (How have we not yet seen a pumpkin spice variety?!)

Purchased Price: $2.99
Size: 11 oz. box
Purchased at: Smith’s (Kroger)
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 cup/40 grams) 160 calories, 2 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0.5 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 1 gram of monounsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 180 milligrams of sodium, 34 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 11 grams of sugar including 11 grams of added sugar, and 2 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Snoop Cereal (Fruity Hoopz, Cinnamon Toasteez, and Frosted Drizzlerz)

Jenna 8 Comments

Are you a fan of rap music and/or the classic recipe book “From Crook to Cook”? Do you want your breakfast cereal to serve a charitable mission? Or are you just tired of seeing toucans and wacky anthropomorphic amalgamations of various food products have all the mascot fun? If you’ve answered yes to any of those questions, you might want to check out the three new flavors of Snoop Cereal (and if you’ve answered yes to all of them, wow, you have really specific tastes).

As the name suggests, these cereals and the colorful animal characters that tout them were indeed created by Snoop Dogg (and Master P, in a collaboration between their Broadus Foods brand and Post), and they even have lyrics on the boxes to match. But what’s more interesting is that proceeds from each purchase are donated to charities that help homeless families and fight food insecurity.

How are they, though? Well… let’s just say that if you’ve ever consumed a sugary cereal before, my findings probably won’t surprise you…

Fruity Hoopz with Marshmallows

At first glance, this “sweetened multigrain cereal” looks just like Froot Loops. On second and third and fourth glance, it does too… so, okay, you’ll probably be familiar with what you’re getting into. I thought maybe the loops looked a bit thicker than I expected, but that didn’t impact the eating experience much. You’ll smell them before you taste them, a fruity, cloying perfume that perfectly foreshadows the sugar-glazed, slightly floral burst of crunchy sweetness to come.

The most “unique” element here (if it can even be called that) would be the marbits, of which I was lucky to find about one per generous spoonful, but at the risk of sounding like a broken record, they are also not super revolutionary. Again, they seemed to me a bit larger than what other cereals like Lucky Charms provide, but they have that same eminently chompable texture, soft yet with an audible crack after you bite down and before they melt pleasantly and cotton-candy-ishly in your mouth. I prefer my cereal with milk and found that these left the milk with a delightful syrupy sweet flavor, but after intending to eat just a few dry pieces, I (perhaps predictably) had a lot of trouble stopping, so you can’t go wrong either way.

Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 1/3 cup) 150 calories, 1 gram of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 160 milligrams of sodium, 34 grams of carbohydrates, 19 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein

Cinnamon Toasteez

This may be obvious just from the box, but I couldn’t find a huge difference between this “sweetened crispy wheat and rice cereal” and Cinnamon Toast Crunch, both appearance-wise and flavor-wise. A few of the pieces I had were extra cinnamon-studded, with stripes closer to black than brown and a slightly more potent taste, but these are mostly just sweet with a vague air of cinnamon-y-ness. I think the OG Cinnamon Toast Crunch tastes a bit more of actual cinnamon and therefore is a bit better, but unless you’re particularly picky, this should definitely make a more-than-serviceable substitute.

It’s also neat that, ranging as they do from lightly wavy to practically bent in two, the pieces aren’t perfectly square, giving them extra texture and dimension, and some are studded with air bubbles that contrast the general brittleness well. Their flat shape also allows a cool crispiness when sampled straight from the box, though I found these just as appealing when they were soggy with milk. But strangely, while the cinnamon dust became very visible in the milk that collected at the bottom of my bowl, it didn’t seem to affect its flavor whatsoever, so that was a bit of a bummer.

Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 cup) 180 calories, 5 grams of fat, 0.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 210 milligrams of sodium, 32 grams of carbohydrates, 14 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.

Frosted Drizzlers

This “sweetened, crunchy, frosted whole grain wheat cereal” seemed the most novel to me, but that’s probably just because I don’t eat a ton of its doppelganger, Frosted Mini Wheats. (And probably also because, I’ll confess, when I purchased them, my brain only really registered the word “Frosted,” so I expected something… flakier.) Like the Hoopz, these pieces seemed unusually but not unpleasantly jumbo-sized; I couldn’t tell if they were longer than your typical pillow of shredded wheat cereal, but they certainly seemed thicker.

This is the cereal where I felt milk made the biggest difference for the better. Despite a generous dusting of sugar, the strong wheat flavor and bristly texture pretty thoroughly outweighed any hints of sweetness when eaten dry, but they tasted noticeably nicer when soaked in milk. This flavor was decent, but something about eating an easily countable number of ginormous pieces instead of the seemingly infinite number of tiny pieces that other cereals tend to offer just feels less fun. Plus, I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that I was chewing on a bunch of tiny wicker baskets. Oh, and these produced an even more flavorless milk than the Cinnamon Toasteez.

Rating: 5 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (21 biscuits) 210 calories, 1 gram of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 5 milligrams of sodium, 50 grams of carbohydrates, 12 grams of sugar, and 5 grams of protein.

These cereals are tasty, if unlikely to be anything you haven’t seen or snacked on before. You won’t miss much if you don’t try them, but hey, knowing that your sugar rush comes with a side of helping those in need is pretty sweet.

Purchased Price: $3.29
Size: 12 oz box (Fruity Hoopz and Cinnamon Toasteez), 18 oz box (Frosted Drizzlerz)
Purchased at: Target