A Review of New Things I've Tried #29 (Cold Cereal Edition)

Yes, I have a whole lot of other breakfasts documented on this site, but sometimes--rather a lot of time--all I want is cereal. I'm a child of the latter 20th century; you can expect nothing else of me! In general, I have my cereal with soy milk now because I've gotten used to it, but in my early vegan transition I couldn't bear the flavor and had almond milk or cashew milk instead, typically. Live, learn, and do what works. I'm reviewing five items here rather than my usual three. I'm really fond of cereal, and life has been rough enough to make it the most appealing meal a lot of the time of late, plus pandemic shopping meant exploring a lot of new options.

1. Wegmans Maple Pecan Crunch Cereal

One of my favorite pre-vegan cereals was Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds, which is not in my universe anymore. But this one hits all the notes that the other one used to for me and I love it! It has the flakes, it has the oat clusters, it has the nuts, and it has that sweetness. It is also explicitly labeled as vegan, so you won't get any frustrating surprises (cholecalciferol shows up seemingly everywhere in commonly-known breakfast cereals). Nothing to complain about here; it's fabulous. I couldn't get it very often unless someone was kind enough to pick it up for me before I was vaccinated, but now I can have all of this I want.

2. Annie's Organic Cocoa Bunnies Cereal

I have generally outgrown such things, but this was on sale for half price. This definitely gets the job done when the job is "feed me without making me work because I can't deal today," but it doesn't excite me much. To be fair, though, little excites me in that state. The bunnies are super cute, and I appreciate that the cocoa is fair trade. This was definitely worth the price I paid. It might not be worth double that, but you can't have everything.

3. Trader Joe's Almond Butter Puffs

Like Annie's cocoa bunnies, there was nothing truly remarkable about this cereal. It was just cereal. But it does taste a bit like almond butter, and it's crunchy and sweet. Though there is some cocoa powder in this, it doesn't taste distinctively chocolatey or anything. I'd eat these again, but I like other cereals better, so for things I buy myself I'm likely to choose something else.

4. Kashi Cinnamon Super Loops

This was on sale on one of my first post-vaccination ventures out into the world, so I picked it up. It was really exciting to me in a weird way, because it reminded me so much of Cheerios. I can no longer have Cheerios between the honey in the most-popular version and the cholecalciferol in all of the cereals manufactured by General Mills. I think I ate more Cheerios growing up than any other cereal, so it has a kind of nostalgia going for it for me. I want to try all the Super Loops flavors now. I bought another one so stay tuned for that sometime in the future.

5. Barbara's Organic Corn Flakes

You know what corn flakes are like, I presume. I recently had entirely too much to say about corn flakes. But I'm so glad these exist! No cholecalciferol in this ingredient list. These cost more than most of the cereals I buy, so it's not a common treat for me; however, at times, you have to splurge.  

Do you have a favorite cereal? What's your favorite way to eat it?