Mother of God! Is This the End of Sucrophile?

Well, yeah. Pretty much so. For the time being, anyway.

There are two reasons for this (well, perhaps two and a half). First: I've run out of old reviews to re-post. This feature was set up in the first place because some friends wanted me to publish the kiddyrot cereal reviews I wrote back in the early '90s, when I was trying to persuade CBC Radio that there was something passably amusing in the concept of cereal reviews.

(The half-reason is that while I have an enormous archive of old kiddyrot cereal boxes I have no memory at all of what the products themselves were like. Buzz Lightyear Cereal? A complete mystery. I could make shit up, I suppose, but that's not what we're like here at the Institute.)

The second reason is that eating this stuff just isn't good for you. I'm having enough trouble persuading friends to take the boxes of new product I've reviewed this year as it is, and that's just four boxes. Were I mad enough to try to continue doing this once a week, I'd likely be condemning my social circle to an early, grotesquely sugary, grave.

Don't despair, though, cereal fans. There are enough people out there who want to encourage me in my folly that Sucrophile may well make the occasional appearance even if it no longer shows up in your grocery aisle on a weekly basis.

Chicken and Waffles
Who the hell puts marjoram and sage into a breakfast cereal? We repeat: A BREAKFAST CEREAL.

Overall Rating: 59
This doesn't deserve to be as interesting as it turns out to be. However intriguing the flavour profile out of the box, the spiciness doesn't compensate for the bitter cynicism of the very concept, to say nothing of its execution.

Image from the confusing Institute collection

Appearance
This is the second of a pair of joke cereals released by Post earlier this year in "honour" of something called National Cereal Day in the U.S. I'll give the marketing weasels at Post credit for this much: you can actually see a resemblance, in some of these cereal pieces, to their real-world namesakes. Some of the pieces look like cartoon chicken drumsticks; others are rectangles with a sort of waffle pattern in them. Mind you, the weird flaccid flakes we mentioned in last week's review are in this product as well, for no good reason. But at least this joke stays funny for long enough to get the box open.

We feel confident those who test this particular product are going to be drawn to the list of ingredients, because the smell (to say nothing of the taste, which we'll deal with next paragraph) is so astonishing. The hint of savoury (the sensation, not the herb) is strong the instant the bag is opened—a hint that is explained when one realizes that amongst the ingredients are onion powder, garlic powder, black pepper, thyme, and the aforementioned marjoram and sage. Those are not normally considered part of a balanced breakfast.*

Taste and Texture, Dry
The initial taste impact of the chicken-like pieces is horrifying. The herbs are weirdly bitter, making this seem to be the sort of cereal you give to Bad Children. But a curious thing happens after a couple of chews: the spiciness begins to combine with the otherwise-cloying sweetness (that would be your honey, barley malt, corn syrup and cinnamon) in a way that is intriguing if not entirely satisfying for those who are sweet of tooth. There is sufficient black pepper in the spice mix that there is a bite, the merest hint of heat, on the finish. And it's possible to lift a lot of this product from the box without having one's fingers glue themselves together. Just be careful, though: the distance between enough of this stuff out of the box and too much of it is very small indeed.

Taste and Texture, with Milk
Again, this is something that absolutely should not work and yet somehow does. Mind, the window of pleasure for this product is very small indeed, and closes not so much with a bang as with a sodden deliquescent whuffle. But for a few tantalizing seconds a bowl of this product with cow-juice produces a peculiar deliciousness that is, in its own highly artificial way, reminiscent of the mixture of sweet and savoury that one finds in some Moroccan dishes. Sucrophiles are warned, though: don't dawdle through your snack, because when this stuff stops being fun it becomes quite nasty indeed.

Conclusion
Remember the movie Attack of the Killer Tomatoes? The TV series "Sealab 2020"? There is something more than a little nauseating about a consumer product deliberately designed to mimic what others created in earnest. Ineptitude, yes, but earnest, serious ineptitude. Post's recent assault on boomer nostalgia and post-millennial irony is a breakfast equivalent of these cheap jokes. You might find yourself laughing, but the laughter turns bitter all too soon. [June 2019]

*The fact that the author of this piece regularly consumes soup for breakfast, and so is familiar indeed with these spices as a matutinal pleasure, is beside the point here. 

Maple Bacon Donuts
Nope. Nope nope nope.

Overall Rating: 27
This doesn't taste anything like bacon. Fortunately it doesn't taste anything like maple either. Failure to satisfy on the donut aspect goes without saying.

Image from the Institute Collection
(and boy do we regret having it)

Appearance
Have you ever found yourself having to explain a joke? As you watch your audience's eyes collectively glaze over, you can feel yourself shrinking in stature along with your joke. Somebody should have warned Post that just because something makes people laugh in the elevator you're not supposed to expect to cause a laugh-riot in the boardroom.

This is one of a pair of joke cereals released by Post earlier this year in "honour" of something called National Cereal Day in the U.S. (We'll deal with the other next week.)  The product consists of two different shapes, one at least of which does resemble a donut (or a bagel or an inner tube); these pieces (made mostly of oat, we suspect) are (artificially) coloured to look sort of like the (artificial) colour of a maple-glazed donut (artificial, we repeat). The other piece is a flake of corn and wheat flour and is supposed to represent... what? The crushed, flattened souls of the marketing weasels responsible for this travesty? Well, in a perfect world that's what would happen to them anyway.

Taste and Texture, Dry
The only positive thing to say about these is that your fingers won't get sticky when you pick the pieces out of the box. Okay, we suppose there's one other potential positive: if you're one of those sad boomers who actually like the taste of those horrid molasses-flavoured Halloween toffee pieces, you'll find something in here to cheer you. There's a disclaimer on the back of the box saying no pigs were harmed in the making of this cereal. O how we did laugh... The disclaimer's not necessary, because nothing in the flavour of this product hints at any sort of exposure to porky goodness. We'd been worried the product would smell and taste of artificial smoke; there's none of that here. Not much of anything else either. We never thought we'd ever find ourselves missing the cloying scent and flavour of artificial maple, but would it have been so hard to at least put a hint of that in here? The closest we came to it was a post-testing belch that might have suggested maybe a touch of artificial maple. No trees were harmed in the making of this mess either.

Taste and Texture, with Milk
If it's not worthy of snacking from the box, is it at least going to justify immersion in dairy liquids? Don't be silly, gentle reader. If this product earns points for anything it's for the amazing speed with which the flakes turn into papier-mache goop. Most of what little flavour this ever possessed seems to evaporate when the milk is poured on; not even that  ghastly Halloween flavour bothers to stick around. All that remains by the time the bowl is empty is a somewhat sour taste of complete and utter failure.

Conclusion
It used to be a lot of fun to pick up kiddyrot cereals and assess them with a degree of seriousness totally unbecoming to what they actually were. This product represents the Marketing Department's sly, sardonic acknowledgement of what kiddyrot cereal fans were getting up to. In the process they're pretty much killed the joke.

We are reminded of what Tom Lehrer said in the mid-seventies: political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. [June 2019]

Sour Patch Kids
Well, this is something new. Not often you can say that in the kiddyrot sphere.

Overall Rating: 78/39*
It's a wake-up call in more ways than one!

Image from the Institute Collection
(courtesy of Jannie Shea, who really
ought to know better...)

Appearance
We didn't think it was possible to build a cereal more blinding in appearance than Froot Loops, but danged if Post hasn't done the trick. Ignore for the moment that the individual pieces, which we think are supposed to represent some sort of gummy candy, actually resemble model bacteria from the Junior Mad Scientist's Be Evil At Home kit; the colours are stunning. Forget eating this stuff; you just want to pour out a bowl and then stare at it.

Taste and Texture, Dry
Surprisingly light and crisp, especially when you consider that this is a blend of three flours, including the dread oat. The flavour is a bit reminiscent of Adams's description of the effect of a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster: these pieces taste as if you've been double-dipped in vinegar while snorting powdered sugar. Flavour? There is no flavour, just an acetic sensory assault followed by a sugar-blast to the back of the brain. On the negative column of the ledger, the individual pieces are on the small side (there's that bacterium thing again) which makes snacking out of the bag a sticky chore.

Taste and Texture, With Milk
We're not at all sure that vinegar and milk are a solid combination. The best that can be said about this product's performance after encountering cow-juice is that if you let it sit for a little while the worst of the acid leaches away, leaving a more-or-less standard sugar-milk combination. Trust us, this is easier to get through than trying to eat the unmediated acid blast straight from the box.

Conclusion
Who knows? Maybe Kids These Days™ are more enthusiastic about vinegar than (Talkin' About) My Generation. Now that we think on it, this likely explains the vogue, in some circles, for saisons, sours and other beers that taste as if they've been left in the sun too long.

[May 2019]

*Higher score is for those who enjoy sour flavours that are still somehow cloyingly sweet, like really bad American Chinese takeout. Lower score is for everybody else. And yes, this is the first split score in the Institute's long and storied history.

Reese Puffs Bats
This may have been a limited-edition release for Halloween. Well, here at the Institute every day is Halloween.

Overall Rating: 88
Note that the high rating is conditional on your liking the taste of peanut butter. As the saying goes, Your Mileage May Vary. On the other hand, it's a pleasure to detect the actual flavour of peanut butter in a Reese's cereal product.

Image from the Institute Collection

Appearance
Well, here we go again. It's probably a good thing children have such active imaginations, because it surely requires a more-than-willing suspension of disbelief to see nature's greatest flying mammal (and a totem animal of the Institute) in these deformed monstrosities (and we don't use "monstrosities" in any Halloween-positive sense). You know you're in trouble when the shapes of these cereal pieces not only don't resemble the objects they're supposed to represent (that would be bats), they don't even resemble the sample pieces shown on the box (that would, apparently, be a corn-based model of an over-inflated, deformed pig's bladder). The only positive thing you can say about this is that the misshapen protuberances on the individual pieces make them easier to pick up from a bowl.

Texture and Taste, Dry
Imagine our surprise when, on first sinking a fang into one of these, we encountered the actual flavour of peanut butter. This ought not to have been such a surprise, but our previous encounters with Reese's cereals have been underwhelming in terms of flavour. (The benchmark for peanut butter cereals was, and remains, Cap'n Crunch Peanut Butter Crunch.) With this product, at least, Reese have upped their game, which makes us happy.

The cereal is a single-varietal product: corn is the only grain used. This makes for a light, pleasing snap on first bite (cue the vampire jokes) and a minimal amount of cloying stickiness. You'll still want to brush your teeth after this, or they will stick together, but this product makes for a most pleasing snack out of the box.

Texture and Taste, With Milk
There's a reason kids like a glass of milk with a PBJ sandwich, and the same applies to this PB cereal. (In theory chocolate is involved as well, but this product has even less "chocolate" flavour than any of the others the Institute has sampled.) The corn holds up to the dairy quite well (as is usually the case with corn cereals) and for the real peanut butter fanatics out there, the product won't have a chance to go soggy before it's all been snarfed up. It's interesting: the peanut butter flavour seems stronger at the end of a spoonful than at the start. That's probably what was intended, though: the strong finish encourages you to dip your spoon once again.

A few points are lost because of the non-existence of the chocolate, save for the provision of some questionable colour variation, and because of the way the flavour takes a while to declare itself when taken with milk. But with this product a second bowl is a strong possibility.

Conclusion
We'll be honest: this was a pleasant surprise. The product was purchased on sale, well after Halloween, but it held up quite well. Not everybody out there is going to be a fan of peanut butter, in cereal or otherwise, but if you are, this is a positive choice. Plus, the things are so horribly misshapen that you really could use this product to terrify tiny tots next Halloween. [May 2019]

[Posted a day later than usual in honour of the Victoria Day long weekend.]

Maizoro Cocoa Flakes

Overall Rating: 61

Well, here’s something different. In honour (ha) of the USAMCA (this really should be a song by the Village People) we present a Mexican kiddyrot cereal. Well, the price was right, anyway: $1.00 CAD per box.

Image from the Institute Collection

Appearance

What can you say about flakes? Well, what can you say that Kellogg’s hasn’t already appropriated for their current ad campaign, or that doesn’t violate this blogging system’s terms of use? These flakes are smaller than the norm (a problem in the manufacturing process?), which means less surface area on which the sugar can sit, which is not a good thing.* Their colour is an unfortunate unterderminate shade, more burnt sienna than chocolate. Given Mexico’s long and fabulous history with chocolate, this does not bode well.

Texture and Taste, Dry

Starts off rather well, with sugar readily apparent and a pleasant hint of cocoa. The smaller size of the flakes works to their advantage here, since they have just the right size and mass (they’re heavier than most flakes, and would be even without their sugar coating) for easy picking up from the bag or bowl. Unfortunately, the makers have chosen a most unfortunate artificial flavour in their attempt to boost the “chocolate” flavour, and Maizoro dry very quickly begins to taste like a particularly repellent cough syrup. The first mouthful is fine, but Sucrophile heartily recommends you stop there.

Texture and Taste, With Milk

The medicinal flavour is almost completely masked by the milk, which is good. But that leaves virtually no chocolate flavour, which is bad. But the flakes so massive they resist sogging for an incredible length of time, which is good. But because they are so massive, a bowl of this cereal is heavy enough to be used as a weapon in certain Asian martial arts, and that’s bad (except possibly for certain segments of the population, which we do not want to meet in dark alleys or even shopping malls). Your teeth and jaw muscles will certainly get a workout eating this. Of course, you can accomplish this by chewing the carpet, too.

Conclusion

This is a Man’s cereal, or at least it would be if it weren’t for the sissy sweet stuff. At best, Maizoro sends out mixed signals. This is just a poor cousin of Chockles, we’re afraid. [March 1993]

*We probably violated some scientific law about inverse square ratios or something here, when it comes to overall sugar density. We don’t want to hear about it.

Cap’n Crunch Crunchberries

Overall Rating: 79

The cap’n seems to have mellowed a bit; a mouthful of these used to weld your teeth together better than any cyanoacrylate glue. Now it’s merely sickly-sweet. But hey, these are the ‘90s. [So they were -ed.]

Image from the Institute Collection

Appearance

A part of this evil breakfast. The crunchberries glare out of the bowl at you like so many pink, baleful rats’ eyes. Cap’n Crunch itself is a sickly yellow-gold pillow, bathed in enough sugar that you can see it. This is our idea of what a breakfast cereal should look like.

Texture and Taste, Dry

The “berries” are a brilliant addition to what was already a pretty psychosis-inducing cereal. These round, pink nuggets taste like cotton candy made from raspberry cordial, and each berry seems to contain an amount of sugar equivalent to a year’s harvest from one of the larger fields in Cuba. This product is the perfect size for picking up from bowl or bag, and the modifications to the original cereal that keep it from fusing your teeth together make it ideal for snacking. Or they would, were it not for the fact this stuff is so sweet it’s been proven to induce diabetes in lab rats simply by being stored in the same time zone.

Texture and Taste, With Milk

While not quite up to the standards of our youth, Cap’n Crunch is still a massively toothsome bowl o’ sweet, even with milk added. Not even the more-absorbent crunchberries can tone down this product’s superior snap. The overwhelming sweetness of the crunchberries is at first held in check―a little―by the milk. It quickly begins to reassert itself, however, and by the end of the first bowl your pulse should be racing. You won’t want more than one bowl.

Conclusion

This product is the Mount Everest of breakfast cereals. A fellow-sucrophile on the west coast had to give up writing cereal reviews after spontaneously developing 187 different allergies to all the artificial colours in this product. Actually, this stuff is fairly safe, since it contains its own limiting device. You’re prevented from overdosing by the sheer amount of sugar in this: if you manage to down more than one bowl, you have to have your stomach pumped. [March 1993]

Trix

Overall Rating: 95

One of the two or three best-looking of all sweetened breakfast cereals on the market today, and one of the tastiest, too. Could it be that the champ, Froot Loops, is about to be dethroned?

Image from the Institute collection

Appearance

You can make kids cereal look good without having to resort to cheap and shoddy anthropomorphism. Of course, you have to be willing to go to town with artificial colouring, but hey, those negative side-effects haven’t been conclusively proved yet, have they? The new [in 1993] Trix is a blinding day-glo bowl o’ fruit, with each different flavour represented by a unique and recognizable shape. There are raspberries and orange slices and bunches of grapes and whole limes and (somewhat incongruously) bananas. Some of these shapes are actually represented (more or less) by flavours. Good as the stuff looks dry, it’s even more blindingly bright when the milk’s added.

Taste and Texture, Dry

The multitude of different shapes actually makes Trix a little difficult to pick up out of the box, but that’s just about the only knock against the stuff as a snack. Oh, it doesn’t quite have the sugar-coated, upfront blast of Froot Loops, but it’s pretty darned close, and because the sugar is more subdued, the individual flavours are actually more discernable.

Taste and Texture With Milk

Who cares about discernable flavours at this point? A bowl of Trix with milk is just a rush of a sweet-sour citric sugarbomb. Tastes great, who gives a &@#! about how filling it is? The texture is a bit of a disappointment; the product begins to mush out rather quickly, and this kind of cereal really needs that crunch to go with the sweetness. But all things considered, this is a minor complaint.

Conclusion

It may well be that the terrific look of this product will be lost on most consumers. But to we at the Institute, it’s all part of a truly awe-inspiring breakfast experience. We now know what that stupid rabbit is always going on about. But we’re equally convinced there’s no way he’s going to get his paws on our Trix. this sugar rush is too good for bunnies; anybody got a Valium? [February 1993]

Hot Wheels Cereal

Image from the Institute collection, in
which it really ought to stay

Overall Rating: 41

If there’s one thing we at the Institute hate more than oat-flour, pretend-to-be-sweet cereals, it’s big, clunky oat-flour, pretend-to-be-sweet cereals. Not even marshmallows can save this guck.

Appearance

Just fine. If what you like to see in your bowl in the morning is big disgusting chunks of beige cement bobbing on the surface of the milk. The stuff is supposed to look like wheels, I guess, but given the sculptural limitations imposed by a medium of flour and water, fer godsake, things don’t quite work out. Instead (and this wouldn’t have been such a bad thing were it not unintended) the product looks like miniature sections of lotus root.

Of course, the marshmallow “cars” tend to spoil that illusion fairly quickly. They look like pastel-coloured kidneys.

Texture and Taste, Dry

Eurgh. Ghod, we hate oat-flour cereals! They are dry and they’re crumbly and it doesn’t seem to matter how much sugar you dump on them, they still taste like sawdust. This product is nowhere near as dense and tasteless as Honeycomb (the worst of the worst), but it’s still like biting into wallboard. And while the marshmallows are the usual Ralston psychotically sweet explosions, there aren’t enough of them to override the dry desert this cereal is.

Texture and Taste with Milk

The milk goes a long way toward relieving the dusty tedium of the product. But why not just drink the milk? The one thing oat cereals have going for them is good crunch and mouth-feel in milk, and this one is no exception. In fact, if you are lucky enough get a bowl with a reasonable ratio of marshmallows to icky dry kacky bits, it’s close to almost being a nearly pleasant experience. Of course, so is dental surgery on drugs.

Conclusion

The marshmallows seem to sink to the bottom of the box. So open this package from the underside, pour yourself a few bowls to get most of the marshmallows, then throw the rest away. Or save yourself the trouble, and throw the box away before you open it. Or before you even buy it. [January 1993]

Count Chocula

Image from the Institute collection...
evidently by way of Mexico

Overall Rating: 65

One of the granddaddies of the sugar-coated set, this product still manages to compete with younger and more aggressive cereals. A nice balance of sweetness, crunch and the ubiquitous marshmallows.

Appearance

These things are supposed to look like ghosts or something, we guess. They don’t, much, but they’re by no means the worst-looking cereal to come down the pike. The marshmallows, though, are disgusting: some have been dyed shades of brown we didn’t know existed. And what the cereal looks like after it’s been sitting in milk a few minutes is too gross to contemplate; let’s just say it would be a good idea to be fully awake when eating a bowl of this.

Taste and Texture, Dry

Not half bad. The Count is made of corn flour, so the mouthfeel is crisp and the texture is firm without breaking your teeth. The “chocolate” flavour is determined but not overly chemical. It’s always nice when the disguise works properly. There is a bitter aftertaste after a couple of mouthfuls, though, and the individual pieces are sized a little on the small side, so this isn’t an ideal snacking cereal.

Taste and Texture, With Milk

Doesn’t hold up too well. What can you say about a cereal where, seconds after the milk goes on, the marshmallows are crunchier? Maybe the crunch is in the “chocolate” colouring, which leeches into the milk as you’re pouring. It’s pretty cool to see the brown colour climbing up the stream of pouring milk like a spawning salmon. But it doesn’t do much for the flavour of the cereal, and the “chocolate milk” that results has all the flavour of cocoa made by boiling wood stain in water. Enough “chocolate” remains in the cereal itself, though, to make for a pleasant bowl. One bowl only, however. Don’t repeat this.

Conclusion

No North American chocolate cereal could compete with Chockles, and that’s all there is to it. [January 1993]

Ricicles

Sounds great, tastes good. But it’s pretty much a light-weight. It’s not really up to the stresses and demands of a modern Balanced Breakfast. Good afternoon snack, though.

Image, as (almost) always, from the
collection of the Sucrophile Institute

Appearance

Yawn. Can you say Rice Krispies? Thought you could. If Sucrophile were more of a Zen master (or even a Zen apprentice), this product would appeal mightily. Each piece of cereal is a single grain of rice. Said rice is then subjected to a sudden blast of dry heat, which causes it to pop into a light, crunchy morsel. Then a shitload of sugar is dumped on it. The simplicity of it could be very appealing, if breakfast cereal were part of the Cha No Yu, the famous Zen Tea Ceremony. But it’s not, eh?

Texture and Taste, Dry

Not really worth trying. Like Dino Pebbles before it, each piece of this cereal is too small to be picked up. So there’s no point in snacking out of the box. Some points are gained for the delicate mouthfeel and the way the sugar manages to emphasize its presence without overwhelming everything and causing your pancreas to explode. But this is not a dry-snack cereal, not in your wildest dreams.

Texture and Taste, With Milk

Lots of plus points for managing to overcome the biggest problem facing all rice-crisp cereals: getting the sugar to adhere. With this product the sugar’s baked on, and the result nicely combines the light, crisp snap of a rice cereal with the blood-bouncing rush of a kiddyrot cereal. This stuff is, quite frankly, not up to a full slate of Saturday morning cartoons. Its crispness and mouth feel are a lot like a politician’s promises the day after the election: the substance vanishes pretty quickly. Be careful not to use too much milk, because this product absorbs very little before it sogs out entirely.

Conclusion

Ricicles (great name, by the way) is a little like a rose wine: it’s very pleasant in a limited way, but there aren’t that many circumstances in which it’s the correct choice. It’s certainly not the product you want for a Saturday morning of cartoon-watching. It would, however, be ideal for a quick, small bowl in the late afternoon before supper. Just don’t let Mom find out. [December 1992]

Cinnamon Mini Buns

Overall Rating: 79

This product seemingly has everything going for it. So why don’t we want to buy any more of it?

Image from the Institute collection

Appearance

A clever idea. Kellogg’s has picked an easy-to-duplicate shape and done it well. Each piece of cereal is composed of a strand of dough wrapped into a spiral to resemble a tiny, sweet sticky-bun. The colour’s not quite right, though. Something with the word cinnamon in its name should at least look as if it contains some of that spice. These are so pale in colour they almost look albino.

Texture and Taste, Dry

Good, firm resistance. Mouthfeel is crunchy without any sharp edges leading to risk of mandible laceration. This product is the right size and shape for serious snacking, and its corn-oat flour makeup is calculated not to cloy. You could eat a fair amount of this without your teeth sticking together. But would you want to? Something is missing from this concoction, and that something is cinnamon.

Texture and Taste, With Milk

The light but firm crunch holds up well in milk. The corn flour is in perfect balance with the oat so this stuff is not too heavy. But the flavour balance is off. “Cinnamon” is the very last listing on the ingredients list, and while it’s true a little cinnamon goes a long way, it could have gone a little further in this case. This stuff hardly tastes of cinnamon at all, and the sweetness completely overwhelms what spiciness there is. Sugar is all well and fine in its place, but let’s remember this product’s name; if they’d called it something like “Sugar-Loaded Spirals” Sucrophile wouldn’t be complaining. As much.

Conclusion

It’s a perfect adequate bowlful, but in the absence of any flavour to really set it apart, Cinnamon Mini Buns is no different than the rest of the pack. It’s like a Russian figure-skater: it gets top marks for technical expertise, but there’s absolutely no artistic merit in its presentation. If you like cinnamon, stick with Cinnamon Toast Crunch. This rates only two points lower than CTC, but there’s a lot in those two points. [November 1992]

The Jetsons Cereal

Overall Rating: 46

A very half-hearted attempt to exploit what I would have thought a thoroughly un-exploitable TV series. Unremarkable in the extreme.

Image from the Institute collection

Appearance

This one explodes on the launch pad. Once again Ralston Purina (the Cat Chow people!) try to get cute in a medium that really resists complicated cleverness. Not even the simple crescent and star shapes this product attempts come out well. And the package Sucrophile sampled contained several great horking lumps of dessicated sugar-corn syrup-apple mixture in which deformed bits of cereal were embedded like roaches in amber. How’d you like a big lump of that as part of your Balanced Breakfast, kiddies?

Texture and Taste, Dry

In trying to be all things to all people, this product is made of wheat, oat, corn and rice flours. The result is something that might have been light enough to make innocuous snacking material―except the pieces are too small to be easily picked up. There’s little in the way of crunch, and the mouthfeel is like Stein’s Oakland: there’s no there there. It’s gone almost before you realize you’ve bitten down.

Texture and Taste, With Milk

What taste? The ingredients list claims there are real dried apple bits with cinnamon in this product, but you’d have to have a gas chromatograph to detect any. What little flavour there is when milk is added seems to be coming from malt. Since many sweetened cereals contain malt, there’s absolutely no reason to eat this instead of just about any other product. The crunch (what there is of it) holds up reasonably well in milk, but that alone is not enough to recommend this product for anything save possibly an emergency substitute for cat-litter.

Conclusion

I never liked “The Jetsons” as a TV series. The spin-off cereal is exactly like the animation that inspired it: endlessly repetitive, with neither character nor a single original moment to justify your spending any time at all with it. When all you can say about a cereal is that at least it’s sweeter than Kaboom!, then you’ve got problems. Pass the Dino Pebbles, please. [November 1992]

How We Do It: A Look Inside Sucrophile

In response to a cascade of requests (okay, to one request, but from a really nice person), here is the truth (we swear it) about how Sucrophile is prepared, review after review.

We here at the Sucrophile Institute (also known as the Hyperkinesis Institute) are firm believers in a rigorous structure for consistent, scientific making it up as we go along. Therefore, we endeavour to ensure that each test of a product (as we like to call the junk, or kiddyrot, cereals) is performed under conditions that come as close as possible to duplicating the conditions under which all the other tests were conducted. Right down to wearing the same clothes. Without washing. This bathrobe is starting to develop language skills, in fact.

Fortunately, the Institute has a fairly
large collection of recorded animated
programming (image in public domain)

Testing occurs in two phases and takes place in two different rooms. The first phase, the Natural Test, takes place in the sitting room [now the library], sitting (in front of the television). The choice of programming varies* somewhat, so long as it meets the following criteria: a) it must be animated, and punctuated with loud, shrill commercials selling dolls that poop or mermaids that yodel; b) it must be utterly mindless (for which, see a) above).

The second phase, the Lab Test, takes place in front of the computer, with a slight horizontal deviation in order to place the keyboard out of the path of the milk and cereal should it somehow spill. The Lab Test phase is sometimes known as the Do It Again Because You Forgot Whether You Liked It And It’s Three Hours To Posting Time phase. Duplicating testing in this way helps to ensure accuracy of data, much the way that Dr. Robert Gallo ensured the accuracy of his data while discovering HIV†.

Examining new kiddyrot product in the

Institute test facilities.

(Photo by Do-Ming Lum)

In all test phases the same equipment is used. The spoon is a Hakka Number 2 teaspoon, a Finland-made product chosen for its relatively flat, narrow bowl; this facilitates transfer of the product to the mouth without allowing for disruption caused by mustache or beard. The Hakka is prized for its non-specular brushed stainless steel finish. The cereal bowl is made of high-tech Pyrex and is higher-sided than standard cereal bowls. This allows the bouquet of the cereal to circulate as the product oxidizes under the influence of the lactic acid in the milk. Only 2% milk is used, in order that the taste of the product not be compromised by excessive lipids from higher-butterfat dairy products.

The procedure followed is likewise rigorously controlled. Two handsful of the dry cereal are consumed for the Dry portion of each testing phase. Each handful is removed from the box, without the use of any other implement. In this way our testers are able to perform a quick yet incisive assessment of the “handiness” of the product. Two handsful of the cereal provide all the input needed for the expert sucrophile to pass judgement on the product’s dry performance. The first handful is judged on flavour, aroma (if any) and relative sweetness. The second is judged for texture, mouthfeel and resistance to the bit. The second handful also provides a quick reference for the product’s ability to stand up to prolonged snacking―does it cause the teeth to stick together, for example, or is gum laceration a risk?

For the With Milk portion of each test phase, the product is poured into the test bowl to the volume of 250 millilitres (ml). Then 125 ml of 2% milk is added and the combination given one stir with the test spoon, in order to maximize product exposure to the milk. After the stir, a delay of five seconds is imposed, to allow the milk to begin to penetrate the product. Then the product is consumed at a slow, steady pace (while watching the animated programming), in order to provide the best opportunity for the product to show how well it stands up to milk, while maximizing the likelihood the tester will become so absorbed in the onscreen wackiness as to utterly vacate the premises, intellectually speaking. Since 250 ml of product provides more chewing opportunities, the tester usually devotes alternate spoonsful to flavour and texture tastings. In all cases, careful notes are kept on the backs of envelopes, old newspapers, outgoing mail and bills we’re hoping to ignore. These notes are then carefully lost.

The end result of this painstaking procedure is a series of data that we at the Institute feel provides the sort of detailed and careful analysis that sweetened breakfast cereals and their consumers deserve. We thank you for placing your faith in the integrity of the Institute, and if you have a favourite cereal you’d like to see very favourably reviewed, please get in touch. No cheques, please.

[November 1992; revised March 2019]

*Conditions have altered since this was written back in 1992. The Institute dropped its cable television subscription years ago, Broadcast television likewise stopped broadcasting cartoons in the early ‘90s, for the most part (the cartoons still airing on public networks such as TVO and PBS definitely do not count). Fortunately the Institute retains a significant collection of recorded Saturday Morning Cartoons. And the brainless TV ads can still be found on YouTube, if that’s your idea of a good time.

†Arbitrary historical reference. Look it up! Read a book!