Cereal Throwdown: Fiber One 80 Calorie vs. Honey Nut Cheerios

I have a cereal confession to make: I’m a sucker for Fiber One.

Annoying ad guy notwithstanding, I’ve never thought the “healthy” cereals produced by the brand tasted like cardboard. I mean, their bars basically taste like candy, and their cereals beat the sox off most sugary adult cereal you can get. Even the Fiber One Original has a special place in my heart. The bran-ey taste gets such a boost from aspartame that it’s like sucking down the flavor of a Sara Lee Bran Muffins, while the crunchy little twigs make it both an ideal mix in with chocolate chips, as well as a great topper for yogurt.

It’s a double edge sword eating Fiber One, no doubt. While it tastes good going down, my small intestines will often be kicking myself later (literally), so much so that I have to restrain myself from buying both the Original and Honey Clusters varieties. The Original is tough to duplicate, but I’ve earned to get my Honey kick on by replacing the Honey Clusters with good old fashioned Honey Nut Cheerios. Despite a newfound love for Multigrain Peanut Butter Cheerios, the box with the smiling bumble bee remains the most purchased Cheerio variety in my house.

But how does it compare with the newest member of the Fiber One cereal line? Fiber One 80 calorie cereal clearly is targeted to the dieting women crowd (lets not mince words here) but that’s never stopped me from trying out a Fiber One product in the past. Looking to test just how authentic that honey taste is, I put it up against Honey Nut Cheerios in the blog’s first ever Cereal Throwdown.

Appearance and Texture: Honey Nut Cheerios have a classic shape that seems different than every other Honey-O knockoff your local grocery store is producing. The O’s are fairly small with a distinct glaze that renders a smooth mouthfeel. I love snacking on them because the glaze dissolves slowly in your mouth, and you can literally suck on the peices like candy. Fiber One 80 Calorie, meanwhile, comes in two shades. There is also a slight honey glaze, although it doesn’t seem as distinct because of the ridge lines. The peices have a slight puffed nature to them though, and aren’t as liable to spill when you go digging around for them in your grab-n-go pouch while at work (what, eating on the job?). Likewise, they have a bit sturdier of a crunch, which allow you to get more dissolve time in your mouth. Because of these two facts, I give a slight edge to Fiber One 80 Calorie.

Taste: It’s a lot closer than I thought going in. The good news is that if you’re a honey fan both pack a punch. While Honey Nut Chex might just hold the record for most potent honey sweetness, Honey Nut Cheerios and its nine grams of sugar (from honey, sugar, and brown sugar) hit you with a mellow and classic taste that also gets a big boost from an almond flavor on the backend. Once more, you can actually taste the oat base, which isn’t marred by any off chemical or excessive corn flavors. The flavors of corn bran are more apparent in the Fiber One cereal but not as off-putting as the ingredient list might hint, and the honey flavor is all but identical in sweetness to Honey Nut Cheerios. However, each piece lacks the certain depth of flavor that is encased in each Honey Nut Cheerio, and something just doesn’t seem to mesh as well as the tried and true combination of oats + honey + almonds. Honey Nut gets first crack here.

Nutritional Considerations: Per serving, you’re looking at 80 calories (duh) against 110 calories. From a density standpoint you’re going to get more servings at fewer calories per bowl of Fiber One, and while a serving of Honey Nut Cheerios definitely hits the spot, it’s easy to overload. But I like that Honey Nut Cheerios doesn’t kill you with fiber. Too much fiber is gonna straight up make me not want to move, so even though the whole low calorie angle might be the way to go for the desk-ridden crowd, Honey Nut Cheerios supports my lifestyle better. Gotta give the bee the edge here.

Winner: It’s no secret I hold Honey Nut Cheerios to be the gold standard of golden honey deliciousness in boxed, cartoon character form. That being said, the honey taste was very evenly matched by Fiber One 80 Calories, which in a “close my eyes” taste test was tough to call out. But the giveaway — and the element which makes Honey Nut Cheerios so great — is that complex almond taste, which compliments and brings out the flavors of the oats. Truth be told, both of these have become repeat purchases for me, but if you’re going to twist my arm and make me buy one or the other, I’m going with the Bee every time.

Honey Nut Cheerios

• Ranking: 9/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 100%

Fiber One 80 Calorie

• Ranking: 7.5/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 80%

Fat Tuesday Pizza

Food, I have often said, is a vehicle for stories. This is one of those stories. A very long story. A 16.42 mile story, to be specific. So perhaps you should get some popcorn while I start at the beginning.

One of those most difficult aspects of being in a career search is the inexhaustible boredom which comes with waiting. Yes, one can always be filling out applications and casting his/her lot into every open position, but there comes a time when you’ve just got to step back and embrace the virtue of patience while the wheels of HR Departments go to work. I’ve been stuck in one of those cycles for a week now, and given some transportation limitations, have had to come up with creative ways to pass my time. Aside from the usual chores, comic book reading, and graduate school studying I may or may not accomplish in a given day, this often includes kitchen experiments.

Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras, would seem like the kind of day to indulge my sense of culinary creativity. Pancakes are pretty easy to make and unemployment definitely supports getting fat. Only problem is that I’m stubborn, and I knew the pancakes I could make in my house would hardly do justice to the kinds of over-the-top gut-busters that the diners a good six miles down the street could make. I haven’t gotten pancakes at the Forest Diner in Ellicott City in years, but the thought of 8-year old me slogging through a stack of thick banana griddle cakes was enough to inspire me to do something potentially pretty stupid this past Tuesday.

Not that it mattered to me as I was hitting mile three or four on my leisurely jog out the door and into town. It’s been awhile since I’ve busted out a 10+ mile run, but I’ve done them before and packed plenty of snacks to keep me going. Besides, I think it’s good to do truly bizarre, seemingly “impossible” things every once in a blue moon. It reminds me that with a little will and some effort, I don’t need to let anything hold me back. Whether it be in applying for a job or asking someone out or eating a bunch of pancakes in between a half-marathon, it’s good to know my mind and body have some fight left in ‘em. Anyways, I figured I’d hit up the pancake house, stuff myself silly, then do some volunteering at the historical society down the street before passing out from a food coma. All the same by me. Ash Wednesday demands fasting, so an extra meal (or two) was in order.

It’s at this point I should mention doing an odd thing during that first half-hour of jogging. Stopping briefly on the side of the road, I spotted a sleeve of Hostess Mini Chocolate Frosted Donuts with two uneaten donuts still inside. Sick, right? I know, but like George Costanza eyeing a half-eaten eclair in the trash, I couldn’t help but stop and actually consider the donuts. No, I didn’t eat them, but I’d remember them in about an hour. More on this later.

Around mile 4.5 I passed a place called Kolache Kreations. I’ve heard about this place for some time and have driven by it for all of forever, but had never gone in. I made a mental note. More on this later.

Eventually I made my way to the Forest Diner. It’s a crummy looking shack, and when I walked in I saw a few old people mulling around and a very limited menu. I checked out their griddle cakes and at $6.99 I thought about it. Then, the old lady at the counter came over and said in a thick, mean-sounding coarse Baltimore accent, “you gonna order anything, HON?!?” If there’s one thing I hate, it’s the word “hun.” Confirming every negative stereotype about Baltimore and Maryland that I have, I quickly left and made for the Double T Diner next door. At least there were a bunch of cars over there.

Having never been to the Double T, I was initially put off by the retro, “New Jersey” diner feel that I had really only ever seen on Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives. A menu offering the cheapest pancake option at six bucks didn’t encourage me (eh, I guess I’m more or a McDonald’s ‘hotcakes’ guy when it comes to paying my own way), and feeling a slightly irrational fulness, I decided to just keep running and see what else I could find.

20 minutes later, nature called, so I made sure to duck into a Dunkin Donuts to use the restroom. After contemplating a donut I decided that wouldn’t be keeping with my Lenten resolution not to blow money of fast food, so I made my way back another two miles or so to Kolache Kreations. I had heard they had a Pulled Pork kolache, and that sounded like it would hit the spot before making my way back the four miles to home. Key word is “thought,” because by the time I got there, they were out, and had only a few stale looking sausage and cheese kolache’s left. All due respect to the Czech’s, but I am not a sausage and cheese kind of guy.

Still feeling oddly not hungry, I continued on my run, thinking I’d just go home. Not 10 minutes later though I started to get hungry. Really hungry. Like runners-high-wearing-off, hit-the-wall hungry. And suddenly, I remembered that donut. Having a hobo moment might not have been such a bad idea, because at that particular moment I was either locked in towards running back home, or attempting a slight detour. In spite of my inner cheapskate I chose the detour, remembering the obscene amount of “5 Dollar Special” signs I had seen near the Italian place in the Waverly Woods plaza. Knowing full well it would be another few miles to get there and then another four or so to get back home, I had clearly lost my mind to the delusion of low blood sugar and a pizza craving.

I ended up at Tattoria Montese, and expecting to be greeted like a marathon runner at the finish line, was instead greeted by a not-so-happy looking Italian lady who impatiently waited for me to order. Noticing that the guido-looking crew was in the habit of reheating the monster, Sbarro-like pizza slices, I asked to get a piece from the previously uncut pie at the end, saying, “I want the freshest you have.” She didn’t take too kindly at that and bit back that “they’re all fresh.”

Clearly, Fat Tuesday is an excuse to lie before Lent begins as well.

So how was the pizza? About what you’d expect from New York Style reheated pizza. It was, I should say, overpriced and comparatively average. The idea that it should cost five bucks with a fountain drink and a few hunks of lettuce (and coming with some rather rude service) won’t make me a repeat customer, while the feeling of running back another 5+ miles to my house with the whole shabang in my gut was among the worst physical experiences I’ve endured since getting my chest hairs ripped apart at the hospital during my junior year of college.

But, for a good five minutes on Fat Tuesday, that pizza tasted like the best damn pizza  I had ever had. Forget that the cheese wasn’t optimally stretchy or that the crust sagged more than Pam Anderson will in a couple of decades, but the greasy, salty taste of mild mozzarella warming run-of-the-mill, generic Italian-herb sauce and chewy pizza dough was subject to that omnipotent “x” factor of taste. It satisfied something desperately primal and, after not having this kind of cheap, mall-type New York Pizza style in years, brought back warm memories of my once loved Mama Illardo’s.

I left altogether satiated, both in mind, and in stomach. And that’s pretty much all anyone can ask after forking over five bucks for lunch, right? It may not have been a traditional Fat Tuesday, but it sure was an adventure, and a nice reminder that you really can do anything you set your mind to.

I’ll just never do that again.

Because I do not hope…

I am taking today off from blogging (and to a certain extent, eating) in observance of Ash Wednesday. The start of Lent, Ash Wednesday marks a time when we Christians look to remind ourselves that we come from ashes and will return to them, remembering that this earth is not our true home. By giving things up and fasting we draw closer to God and our less fortunate brothers and sisters, and build a sense of discipline and mindfulness that often gets lost in the hustle and bustle of the world (especially the online world.)

There is a beautifully calming poem from T.S. Eliot I like to read to myself on days like this, and I think it resonates on a lot of levels. If you’re looking for something to reflect on today, I’ve always found the poem to help me center myself and “ease” into being.

I’ll be back later this week, included a look at what I was chowing down on on Fat Tuesday.

French Toast Crunch Found!

I often wonder how the stuff that gets into Big Lots makes it in there. With a strange assortment of Megablox lego knockoffs and a plethora of European cookies biscuits, my gut feeling is that its part of strange effort by a Dutch mob group to exert its influence over our children, but then again my conspiracy theories have been known to crash and burn.

Case in point, the amount of off-the-wall American treats that line the grocery shelves. From Paula Deen’s peanut line to potato chips from every backwater town in Appalachia, Big Lots doesn’t discriminate when it comes to bringing in, well, stuff.

Stuff makes me curious, especially when it reminds me of other, better stuff that was egregiously taken from store shelves without due process or proper explanation. I am of course speaking of French Toast Crunch. Consistently ranked as one of the top foods we will “never” see again, it was discontinued in the United States in 2006 and remains one of the only reasons I’d ever consider moving to Canada (the other being an attempt at a CFL career, but that’s another story.) I only vaguely recall eating the cereal, but to my knowledge it remains the only real experience I’ve ever had with French Toast anything, unless you count a sunburn I received at the age of 14 while I was napping on one of those boring river cruises through Paris.

I don’t bring all this up to just jog your memory for the sake of depressing our collective national conscience, but rather because I spotted this while in Big Lots:

That’s right. CRUNCHMANIA. Produced by Kelloggs and not General Mills, mind you, each individual, 50-gram pouch cost me a quarter. A self-proclaimed “good source of Calcium” and a whopping 4 (count ‘em, 4) vitamins, it promises Bite Sized French Toast Graham Sticks which are both naturally and artificially flavored. In other words: it’s a cereal disguised as a 230-calorie pack snack.

The taste is exactly how it’s described, and surprisingly reminiscent of what I can remember as French Toast Crunch. A strong graham flavored base mixes with a cinnamon sugar sweetness almost exactly like a Nabisco cinnamon graham cracker, but there’s also a buttery-taste that mixes with a slight maple flavor. I wouldn’t say it’s authentic, but it bridges a line somewhere between Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Waffle Crisp, and reminds me of the faux French Toast taste of my youth. In milk, the story isn’t so positive. Despite their hefty nature the thick, toast-shaped squares dissolve easily, and don’t take on any added flavor. Once more, they don’t leave a sweetly satisfying end-milk, and just come across as altogether “meh.”

Which speaks to the problem of these as cereal. Crunchmania pieces lack the essential lightness of cereal texture, and fail to give off the more aptly described “crisp” that comes with Cinnamon Toast Crunch.  Likewise, their size makes them awkward to eat in the bowl preparation method, and better support snacking from the bag.

French Toast Crunch Found? In flavor, I believe so. But an exact and even breakfast worthy substitute, not so much. While I’ve become addicted to snacking on Crunchmania and would buy them again, something tells me their existence was limited in production, and aren’t readily available.  Still, I’m keeping one pack unopened, and will report back further once a certain box the customs agency may or may not have intercepted reaches my place of residence.

Kelloggs’ Crunchmania

• Price: $.25 (Big Lots)
• Ranking: 7/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 60%

20 Cent Sausage Biscuit

Q from the website Brand Eating once defined McDonald’s Sausage Biscuit as “simplicity in itself, it’s a grilled sausage patty in a warm biscuit for $1.”

I don’t eat much fast food as it is and am making a point to give the impulsive buys up, but the novelty of an economics lesson of drive-through marketing hit me while buying milk in the grocery store the other day. Ever the curious cook, I wondered; What if I could make a sausage biscuit for just a fifth of that price, and a fraction of the heavy calorie and fat content?

I see a lot of $10 for $10 adds in our local papers. So I snagged a tube of Pillsbury Simply Buttermilk biscuits and Banquet Turkey Sausages thinking for a cool two bucks thinking I could make a healthier, cheaper alternative to McDonald’s Dollar Menu staple.

To channel Derek Zoolander; “What is this, a Sausage Biscuit for Ants?!?”

Is it the equivalent of eating a homemade, made-from-scatch biscuit with maple flavored pork sausage from your pig named Wilbur that you killed last winter? Good God no, and I hope for the children’s sake you did it with a quick shot to the head. But in all objectivity, it’s a damn good twenty cent biscuit. The Pillsbury Simply Biscuits aren’t flakey or super airy, but rather have a denser crumb that nevertheless is mildly sweet and lemony in flavor. While the Banquet sausage is about the size of a large McNugget, the taste is pretty good. A bit sweet, mostly salty, but generally falling into the “tastes like sausage” camp, the stringy and tightly packed sausage may be dry, but it has a nice black pepper and garlic taste with, I think, hints of fennel seed.

The best part about it all? At 150 calories a pop and more or less coming from my fridge, I’ve devised a reasonable and cheapskate way to get my fast food breakfast fix without having to walk the seven miles to McDonald’s every morning.

Sunday Reflections: A Food Blogger and Lent

“Food is the common denominator.”

With that, Jeanne Allert concluded my tour of the campus of The Samaritan Women, and helped me take another step in satiating the hunger I feel for taking my interest in food and reconciling it with my even more restless appetite for spirituality and hope.

I guess I should start at the beginning. Based in a once run-down neighborhood near where I went to high school in southwest Baltimore, The Samaritan Women is a Christian organization that specializes in transitioning once neglected and broken woman back into society. Once more, it’s an organization that looks to accomplish this mission with the use of a Community Supported Agriculture Program, as well as a vocational program in the Culinary Arts. Rather, it will be these things, once 14 former homeless women — some of them former veterans and others victims of human trafficking – take up residence in the refurbished Baltimore campus in May.

My tour of the Samaritan Women facilities came at a needed time for me. Not only am I looking to contribute positively to the lives of others while I continue to weather a painfully slow career search, but I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I want to approach the season of Lent. A time in which we Christians typically challenge our relationships with worldly objects (ie. giving stuff up) to grow closer to God, Lent presents an almost existential crisis for a food blogger. Not only are Catholics like myself called to fast on days like Ash Wednesday, but we’re also asked to give up meat on Fridays. The latter isn’t so difficult, but the former can be a challenge. I mean, for the foodie, fasting is the equivalent of removing all noticeable interests from ones being. It’s not just the sensory experience of tasting, but it’s removing the elements of preparation, creativity, and adventure that leads us to take such an active interest in food. It’s not just challenging our stomachs or discipline; it’s challenging our very thought process and persona!

At first I wasn’t sure how I wanted to mark the start of Lent. I’ve debated not writing about it here on my blog, and I’ve even considered “giving up” food blogging for 40 days. To some extent I’ve already done so having now left GrubGrade behind, but even I realize cutting down on my impulsive fast food purchases isn’t going to address the true disconnect that exist between the food blogger and the idea of fasting.

I was mulling over all of this yesterday when Jeanne’s words struck a chord with me. As she explained the organization she made it clear that they’ve already hosted volunteers who were hostile to the idea of working with a Christian organization, but after they saw that charity — and love, compassion, and healing — are central to any and all tenants of Christian faith and service, they no longer considered us to be such bad people. I mean really, how is a religion and orginization with the goal of empowering women who were abused and negelcted by the rest of society bad? And one of the driving aspects behind that change is attitudes? Food, and how we all experience it, and how  it can be used to transform lives and give hope.

As I think more about it, I realize there’s a reason for fasting, and I realize it’s not necessarily about me just challenging my ability to focus more intensely on God by focusing less on reviewing crap I eat. Fasting, for the food blogger during Lent, can be an acknowledgment and transfer to others of the joy and hope found in food. Acknowledging it as a gift of sustenance from God, certainly, but also giving up our excess to better serve the poor and disadvantaged.. What, to us, is sometimes the overbearing interest that obscures our view of God, need not be shunned or forsaken completely if it can be transformed into something that allows us to give charitably to our brothers and sisters of the world. That is the true charity that is asked upon every Christian, and the hopeful gift that reflects God’s love that we’re all called to give.

The more I think about it, food isn’t the common denominator. Our shared humanity is, and our shared humanity and search for God – for love – is. I need not give up food blogging for Lent, just as a chocoholic need not give up chocolate. But by adding something such as reflective blogging and service, and by tempering my interest and transferring the meaning behind that interest to someone else, I can hope to embrace a more meaningful season, and embrace a sense of positive charity that gives the hope in the Resurrection to those most in need.

Turkey Hill Praline Pecan Paradise and South of the Border Ice Creams

There are a few circumstances in life which will cause me to buy a product I’ve never tried. One, obviously, is something new. I’ve jumped on more new product bandwagons than college football upstarts in my day, and just like my short-lived days as a BYU fan, so my interest on the latest Oreo or Doritos variety of the month has come and gone.

There’s another reason I may choose to buy a product without thinking twice. The dreaded “Discontinued!” sign.

We’ve all been there in the grocery store. Whether it’s the changing of the seasons or just that inevitable “time,” products marked with the vastly discounted price announcing their impending doom stand out to the curious eater like a Jeremy Lin in the NBA fan. Once more, they make us consider the merits of the item. Was it really so bad? Maybe people just didn’t give it a chance? I mean, it’s looks interesting…

These thoughts, and a sweet tooth, were foremost on my mind when I was at Weis the other day and saw two Pint containers of Turkey Hill’s Stuff’d Ice Cream. As I’ve explained before, I tend to be fairly conservative in my ice cream choices, but the allure of the Fried Ice Cream and Praline Pecan Paradise was to strong to pass up. That, or I felt like doing Paula Deen a favor by buying something laying claim to Fried and Pecans. 

The Fried Ice Cream is clearly a take on the Mexican specialty, offering “cinnamon ice cream swirled with cinnamon sopilla and sweet tostada pieces.” Considering the extent of my Latino dessert experience is limited to the Churros I once bought from the elementary school snack line, I may not be the definitive authority, but I must say this was the epitome of a fiesta in my mouth.  The flavor and aroma of the cinnamon is certainly strong, and the slight graininess of cinnamon-sugar specs that flavor each mouthful reminds me of a fried graham cracker. There’s a definite churro vibe, but it’s bolstered by an amazing, almost apple-pie like quality. The tostada pieces are a little tough to recognize at first, but they show up as a kind of churro-flavored cookie dough mix in. My only complaint in the mouthfeel of the base, which isn’t quite as creamy as I’d like.

If South of the Border is a fiesta in my mouth than Praline Pecan Paradise is a cross between the country music song The South Will Never Let you Down and John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Found. With the exception of the most excellent Whoopie Pie flavor, I can’t recall enjoying a Turkey Hill ice cream this much. Some ice creams don’t deliver on mix ins but as you can see from the photo the caramel swirl and pecans are aplenty, and they both show up in full force in tasting. The ice cream itself scoops easily and has an exceptionally creamy mouthfeel for a light ice cream, while the caramel swirl is thick, sweet, and slightly smokey. With an almost fudge-like quality to it the swirl gives ways to toasted flavor of pecan pieces, which themselves have a light and oily crunch supported by a sweet glaze. The best part of it all? Like the South of the Border flavor, eating a 4-serving, 120 calories per serving Pint is actually a really sensible lunch.

Frankly, eating these ice creams makes me angry. Angry that, by some overlooked aspect of American ice cream consumption, their doomed to be taken off shelves FOR-EV-ER. I understand everyone wants to run with the cool kids and buy Ben and Jerry’s, but at the risk of not clogging my arteries with super premium ice cream and not destroying my bank account, I think I’ll stick with Turkey Hill. Or at least as long as my grocery store still has these on clearance.

By the way, anyone else noticed any discontinued signs around their local grocery stores that have got you testing the waters or filling up the pantry?

Pecan Praline Paradise (Nutrition Info)

•  Price: $1.25 (Weis)
• Ranking: 9/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 90% (until supply runs out)

South of the Border

• Price: $1.25 (Weis)
• Ranking: 8/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 75%

Chocolate Frosted Flakes (Malt-o-Meal)

Last week I was wondering around a dumpy Maryland Walmart while I waited for my mom’s car to get checked out by the guys at the shop. If you’ve ever been to a Maryland Walmart you should know that they ain’t like the ones out West. Those Walmarts – which are like stadiums (only cleaner) in and of themselves — have grocery stores the size of a Wegmans, and probably enough pants and shirts on sale to adequately clothe a third world country. They’ve staffed by mostly nice young people, always have free sample booths, and play host to the great American experiment of shoppers mingling from all income levels.

Walmarts in Maryland aren’t like that. Yes, it’s politically incorrect to say, but if you’ve ever been to one you know they’re by-and-large poorly stocked dumps. Dumps I can deal with. Poorly stocked? That’s a different story.

It’s not often you see two tall blond-haired white guys in suits at these kinds of dumps. It’s even less often that you see them with a grocery cart of 30-oz. cereal bags from the ultra-cheap Malt-o-Meal company. But I saw just that on Monday, and having seen the spectacle more than a few times out in Utah, I immediately yelled, “Hey Elders!” and made a beeline past the Marshmallow Froot Loops.

Long story short, LDS missionaries, and cheap Utes alike, love their Malt-o-Meal. When I went to college, I too, ate and bought plenty of Malt-o-Meal cereal. And thanks to a distribution center located near the campus of Utah State, there was always an ample supply in both of our dining galls. You know what? I liked it, and to this day even favor certain Malt-o-Meal flavors to the “original” big cereal company flavors.

Fate would seem to stalk me in this quest to recapture some of my college enthusiasm when I saw a bag of Chocolate Frosted Flakes at Big Lots later that week. I’ve been kind of down in the dumps lately, and knowing chocolate solves most of life’s qualms, I gladly forked over a dollar. My first taste experience with these was an attempt to preempt any Valentine’s Day singles misery by mixing the flakes in yogurt and strawberries. I can’t say the cocoa flavor dominated, although it did leave an odd brownish color in the yogurt. The sweetness is singular and reminds me a lot of Cocoa Pebbles, which is to say it’s entirely one-note. I can deal with one-note cereal, although I didn’t enjoy these as much as the Kelloggs Chocolate Frosted Flakes, which I thought had a more oily sheen that facilitated the transfer of cocoa powder flavor from flake to taste bud.

Like Kelloggs’ version though, these are actually pretty good to snack on their own or to add to a mix. With something salty and corn-based (I like Corn Nut Chips) they work well to provide a hint of cocoa and burst of sweetness, and on their own they give off more of that REAL COCOA flavor.

For a buck I’d buy these again. I’m much more of a trail mixer anyways, and together with some chocolate chips, craisens, and something moderately healthy, they make a nice morning pick-me-up. They also bring a smile of nostalgia to my face, which is all I could ever ask for from refined sugar and corn, anyways.

•  Price: $1.00 ($1.99 retail)
• Ranking: 6/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 55%

Wheat Thins 100% Whole Grain = 100 Still Awsome

You know those Eat This Not That! guys? Apparently they get a lot of publicity, and apparently they like to pick on products that only make people “think” they’re being healthy. Like Wheat Thins, which those Eat This! dudes have criticized in the past for being mostly made from “refined grains.” Nevermind that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with some good old-fashioned refined grains (after all, we can’t all be barbarian savages), but these profit-obsessed nutritional crusaders now have to deal with the fact that Wheat Thins are 100% Whole Grain.

Yes, they sent me free box to try. No, I’m not saying I like these just because it’s a free box. Frankly, a lot of stuff tends to suck after making the move to more whole grains, but you can leave these off that list. In fact, aside from being a bit darker than the classic Wheat Thin, everything  is almost fundamentally the same. While there is a slightly more assertive depth of flavor, the stern, steady crunch and malted barley sweetness is what steals the show. Small flecks of coarse sugar and salt cover each thin, which I’m almost ashamed to admit  I put to a variety of snacking tests. And while a mini ice cream sandwich bookended by two thins displayed a curiouse affinity for my taste buds, I prefer to snack on these the same way I’ve always snacked on Wheat Thins. Plain, unadorned, and one at a time, allowing the starch to convert its way to sugar before completely swallowing. That right there is some good eats.

About the only thing wrong with these is the same thing wrong with the original Wheat Thins. Namely, the propensity of the snacker to eat the entire box in one sitting. That’s why I recommend checking out the new Wheat Thins with 100% Whole Grains, although I do so with one caveat; bring a buddy.

• Price: Free Sample
• Score: 8/10
• Chances I’d Buy: 70%

A Little Debbie Valentine’s Day

I always get depressed on Valentine’s Day. No, not because I haven’t been on a real date since my freshman year of college. No, not because last year I spent it trying to help a bunch of awkward Mormon girls attract awkward Mormon guys (interesting experience, by the way) at what was deemed an “anti” Valentine’s Day party. And no, definitely not because this year’s promise of a new The River episode and a nightcap of decaf coffee reminds me of how much of a miserable loser I am. Rather, I get depressed because I miss what Valentine’s Day was like in elementary school.

It seems like just yesterday I was passing out  Buffalo Bills valentines of Thurman Thomas and a snickers bar to all the kids in my second grade class, in the process basking in the sweet confectionary notes of homemade and store-bought sweets alike while greedily reading through my own stash of cards and favors. Necco hearts? You’ve got to be kidding me. No way you’re coming to my birthday party after that nonsense? Sweettarts? Now you’re talking. Anyways, lost somewhere between throwing away all the Barbie valentines and keeping all the Sonic the Hedgehog ones, I vaguely, I think, remember eating something wonderfully artificial.

A Little Debbie Be My Valentine Cake.

I had my fair share of K-8 crushes, and from what I’m told I was quite the charmer at the tender age of nine. Still, even that charm couldn’t propel me to admit to actually liking a girl, lest I lose my standing as the most ballsy two-hand touch football player this side of the county line. Little Debbie was different though. All the guys liked Little Debbie. Back then she didn’t have time for me, of course. But now, as all the guys are too hung out sleeping off hangovers and hitting up Taco Bells on a regular basis, Little Debbie has plenty of time for me. And at $1.67 for a box, her cakes just happened to make their way into my shopping cart recently.

Our first date since elementary school starts well enough. She’s got some powerful perfume going on, but I’m O.K. with that. They say that aroma plays a powerful force is both taste and memory, and this one is no exception, instantly transporting me to those foldable grade school lunch tables and the fast pace, competing voices of lunchtime trading. There’s a sweetly artificial vanilla frosting aroma which is beyond cloying, bordering somewhere between a Dunk-A-Roo and pure sucrose. It’s both captivating and seductive, and like Wendy Pefercorn applying sun-tan lotion, it knows exactly the power it holds over awkward males. Trans fats be damned. I want it.

It’s small. Petite, if you will. Three bites will finish it off for even an average person, maybe one or two more if you’ve just traded two cereal bars and half a ham sandwich at the lunch table for it. But I’ve come along way since my youthful awkwardness. I can play hard to get. Judging by the last five years, you might say I’m an expert at it.

I slowly begin to extract the vanilla shell. It’s waxy and sweet to the bite but not the tongue, held firmly together by whatever conglomeration of chemical bonding has occurred between corn syrup and partially hydrogenated soybean oil. The ridges of piped icing make for an intermittent, light crunch. Carefully, I make sure to take my time and savor the crunch as I make my way around the cake.

Behind this initial beauty of outward vanilla and pink icing attraction I find the complex layering of airy cake and creme. There’s a moment of “wow, I never knew that to be the real you” that stands out in this understanding, and suddenly I’m unsure if I can continue this relationship. This part of the Little Debbie cupcake isn’t part of my memory, and now I’m realizing that the rush of Airheads and Nerds through a nine-year old’s bloodstream had distorted my recollection of past events. I have never even had a Little Debbie Oatmeal Pie, much less a cupcake…

Holy crap what now?!?!

Now is the time when a lesser blogger resorts to sexual innuendo, but as for me, well, I actually “get to know” Little Debbie on a more PG level. I learn about how the thin layer of “cream” is highly reminiscent of twinkie cream, and how the cake manages to tread the line between overly dense and almost angel like. I find myself, despite staring at a list of ingredients longer than the lineage of Christ, appreciated each bite for all that’s worth.

But Little Debbie doesn’t feel the same. She tells me she has served her purpose. A reminder, however subtle, of the love for a memory which too often eludes me. Love for my youth, for the days of elementary school lunch trades and Valentine’s Day parties, and yes, even the kind of “I like you but I will never tell you” every nine-year old has for the tomboy next door. It’s a moment short-lived but powerful, and once the image fades, Little Debbie breaks my heart. Until next year, Little Debbie, provided Michelle Obama doesn’t order a Predator drone to target your distribution centers.

•  Price: $1.67 (Safeway)
• Ranking: 9/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: .28 (maybe once every V-Day or so)