Growing up, I was raised in a very healthy eating household. Those of you who are regular readers know this from my parents’ meat freezer piled high with Lean Cuisines. My Mom never let me eat any cereal that had more than 12 grams of sugar per serving, so Cookie Crisp, Count Chocula and Lucky Charms were never options for me. Instead, I received a masters degree from the Barb Moors school of cereal. Here are my favorites from my childhood, which I still eat to this day.
Before you start reading, my Mom is not crazy nor is she a health fanatic. She just always wanted us to eat healthy. She also is an avid reader of this blog so watch the comments!
Cracklin Oat Bran
I remember the first time my Mom brought this stuff home, I thought it was the most disgusting thing I had ever seen in my life. Cracklin Oat Bran? I was seriously supposed to eat this stuff when all of my friends were eating sugar covered cereal with marshmallows? After much convincing, I found that the appropriate name for this cereal should have been Heaven in a Bowl. This stuff is serious delicious. I swear there’s a little bit of crack in every bite of Cracklin’ Oat Bran. The fun thing about it was that you were supposed to let it soak in milk for just one minute…but then you had to HURRY to eat it before it soaked up ALL the milk. This stuff got soggy quickly, so you had to eat it at the perfect point of soggyness. Unfortunately the health police got the recipe changed amid the “oat bran” craze of the 90’s and almost ruined it’s deliciousness. The coconut oil is all but gone and replaced by too much cinnamon and it takes 5 minutes to soak now. I only hope that one day General Mills will make an Special Retro Edition.
Banana Nut Crunch
I didn’t like eating a lot of fruit as a kid, and vegetables were completely out of the question, so my mom had to settle for tricking me into eating some sort of fruit product through cereal form. The weird thing about Banana Nut Crunch is I don’t even like Bananas. I could count the number of Bananas I’ve even on one hand. Thing thing is, this stuff doesn’t taste like Bananas. It takes like some sort of delicious Banana Nut Bread. The flakes have this flavor, and the clusters are amplified with even more of it. Cheerios eventually came along and created Banana Nut Cheerios, but they aren’t even in the same ballpark with this stuff.
Apple Jacks
Coming in with 12.5 grams of sugar, Apple Jacks were the desert of my cereal selection. While I was only permitted to purchase a box every now and then, it was day our two of joy at the breakfast table. Usually the box would be gone within a 24 hour period. The reason these were so delicious was because they were like Cheerios, but actually tasted good. It’s like some kid who was forced to eat cheerios his entire childhood got pissed off and made it his life goal to save other children from that same fate. Why he decided to call it Apple Jacks, I have not a clue. They certainly don’t taste like apples and they are not, nor do they resemble, jacks. Applejack is a hard cider. I have no idea how the association with kids cereal was made. I mean, what if Frosted Flakes were instead named Frosted Lager. Or if Cheerios were Whiskey-Os. It just doesn’t make much sense. Regardless of the name, these things are delicious and responsible for some of the most delicious milk around.
Rice Krispies
Alone, Rice Krispies and milk is kinda boring. Especially since they began making Rice Krispies Treats Cereal. Do you know how hard that is when other kids are coming to school talking up the phenomenon that was Rice Krispies Treats in CEREAL and you know that it will never be a possibility in your house? BUT sprinkle some sugar on the plain old Rice Krispies (sorry mom) and… Hov! This cereal really caters to fruit being mixed in better than almost any other. High cereal-flakes-per-spoon ratio due to small individual “krispie” volume. One spoonful will stack about 10,000 krispies into your mouth. They are on a B.Y.O.S.(bring your own sugar) basis, but Rice Krispies in the pantry is not a bad after-midnight find by any means.
Berry Berry Kix
Can I Kix it? Yes you can. Regular Kix was always a favorite of mine, but when they came out with Berry Berry Kix it completely blew my mind. You mean, I can add artificially flavored fruit clusters and another gram or two to the cereal I’m already eating? Heeeaaaaven. I remember going through and separating the regular Kix from the berry clusters before everything got too soggy. Then I would eat all of the berrys at once. It was my breakfast game. Oh, and it also had one of the greatest jingles ever created. Unlike that idiotic Subway jingle, Kix had an appealing song that made you want to go to the grocery store and purchase it immediately. Apparently this stuff is incredibly hard to find, and Kix began introducing Honey Kix, which John will not be trying.
Super Colon Blow
Ok, that was just a joke. Phil Hartman was the man though, and is greatly missed.
Cinnamon Life
The thing that drew me to Cinnamon Life cereal was that the sugar content was advertised as being low, but each piece of cereal was covered in shimmery pieces of sugar. It was incredible. Another thing was that I looked exactly like that Mikey kid from the commercials. People used to think I was Mikey when we went to the grocery store. I was a bonnafied cereal aisle celebrity look-alike. I’m serious, check out the comparison:
