The Blurry Line Between Cereal and Candy

This is going to be a relatively short post because I am working on an expiration date expose that will blow the lid off the chocolate world! (Or will at least be mildly interesting to the 25 readers of this blog.)

As I have said before, I love the grocery store. To me, there can be no better place than one containing thousands and thousands of food items. Oh the possibility! All the glorious things I haven't tried! New things arriving everyday! A tribute to human ingenuity and imagination! And the taste bud.


Today I spent some time on the cereal aisle. I love cereal. Although I usually get boring healthy brands. But when I saw these, I decided to take one for the home team, and buy them.






I gotta give General Mills top honors in the marketing department. What kid is not going to scream his head off when he sees this? The box looks like the Reese's wrapper, hell the cereal bowl is a Reese's cup wrapper. And these taste pretty darn Reese'slike. They really are pretty good. If they looked more appealing you could serve them in a bowl at a party! Are they cereal or are they candy? Or little cookies? Who knows?

See - not very delicious looking. Look a lot like dry dog food. But they really taste great! When I was a kid, I would have eaten the entire box the day my Mom brought it home from the grocery store.

I give them zero points for health but 10 points for taste. And 10,000 points for marketing and exploiting children. It all depends in what you're looking for in a "cereal."

There's another entry although not so well marketed. I remember Corn Pops from when I was a kid and they were good! These are NOTHING like the Corn Pops I remember. I think Kellogg's should have just come up with a new cereal.

These too claim to be chocolate and peanut butter. But in truth, they don't hold a candle to the Reese's Puffs. Equally unhealthy and even uglier in appearance, these are a desecration of the Corn Pops name. No points for anything.

The Reese's Puffs even have a list of 18 things to do before you're 18 on the back of the box. (They really should leave these motivational type things to the professionals. Like me.)

Let me share some of the 18 things:

bungee jump

go backstage at a gig (yeah, Miley will love to have you)

play a part in your favorite TV show (there's a realistic goal)

invent a word that makes it into the dictionary (are you kidding me? how about LEARN a word that IS in the dictionary?)

complete a road trip coast to coast (parents, that's a good one for your under 18 children, huh?)

but they did add the last one - reach 18 years of age - yes!! (um, by the very title of the list this makes no sense)

But hey, we all gotta dream, right?