Breakfast Cereal Roundup
Tulip gets close to the cereal.
We’re fans of breakfast. As much as we’d like to have eggs and pancakes every morning, we don’t have time, and we don’t want to weigh 500 pounds. So, for practical reasons, we mostly stick to toast, or oatmeal, or yogurt and muesli. About half the time, we eat cold cereal and milk. Which isn’t as unhip as it used to be, given that we recently paid $5 for a bowl of cereal at a cereal-boutique in Evanston. What follows is a run down of our favorite breakfast cereals. Most fall into the super-crunchy-healthy category, but there’s also some sugary good stuff in there as well.
Milk
A quick word about milk, a year or so ago we switched to organic milk, and we’ve never looked back. It’s richer, more milky flavored, and better for you. We encourage you to try out whatever brand of organic milk you can try. We like it. As a double-aside, Camri barely puts any milk on her cereal, I drown mine. I like having a glass of milk in the bowl when I’m done. Then the kittens get to lick the milk residue off the side of the bowl. When I have cereal, everyone gets a little treat. Now, on to the cereals.
Organic Optimum Power Breakfast with Flax Soy and Blueberry
That’s some title, eh? If you’re thinking, “this stuff probably looks like twigs,” you’re right. It totally looks like twigs. To an extent, it also tastes like twigs, except with berries. It’s good. It gets a ten on the crunchy fiber scale. Be forewarned, if you’re not big into fiber, and you have a big bowl of this stuff, you might…uh…not want to make any plans. It’s going to clean you out. Optimum. Power.
Quaker Essentials Oatmeal Squares
This is Camri’s favorite. The Quaker Oats man decided to make little cinnamon squares. He’s good at it. They taste great, have a nice crunch, and don’t get soggy in milk. However, they’re sort of deceptive, they’re not really as good for you as you’d think. If you stacked them up against a sugar cereal, like…say…fruity pebbles, you might be surprised that they’re not that far apart in terms of fiber, calories and fat. Which leads us to…
Fruity Pebbles
Early in our relationship, we had the inevitable, “what was your favorite breakfast cereal when you were a kid” discussion. It’s a tense time in any relationship. What if she liked something dumb like Lucky Charms? What if he was only allowed to have Grape Nuts? It turns out, we both picked Fruity Pebbles as our number one kids cereal. It’s crazy good. Lots of color, absurdly sweet, makes your milk turn funny colors. Shockingly, it’s really not that bad for you. It has a good amount of fiber, is pretty low cal, and has a teeny bit of fat. Plus, it has wacky games on the box. Fruity Pebbles doesn’t stop at keeping your body fit; Fruity Pebbles exercises your mind. Plus, as far as we know, Fruity Pebbles is the first breakfast cereal to feature a rap as a jingle, “I’m the master rapper and I’m hear to say, I love Fruity Pebbles in a major way.”
Total Raisin Bran
It’s Raisin Bran, under the Total umbrella. You know what’s in raisin bran…raisins…bran. It’s good, it’s classic, why mess with it? I can’t tell the difference between it and every other raisin bran on the market, but Camri insists that Total is the best. It’s like the Mercedes of Raisin Bran. More sugar per raisin, more bran per flake. Give yourself a treat, make your raisin bran Total.
Frosted Mini Wheats, Big Bites
For whatever reason, we rarely hear about people eating the big bites. Everyone wants their mini wheats to be mini. Why? Live a little folks, get the big bites. They totally break the typical breakfast cereal mold. They’re huge, they’re covered in sugar, yet still manage to be pretty good for you. They’re my favorite 9pm cereal as well. Something about the big biscuits in milk, half coated in sugar, makes me think I’m eating dessert. Don’t get those strawberry mini wheats though, they’re terrible.
