Update: Offer now over. Thanks to everyone who downloaded it.
Right now, our eBook “Brutally Honest Fast Food Reviews: The Best and Worst of Burger King, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Other Drive-Thru Mainstays” is free at the Amazon Kindle store for a very, very limited time.
So go download it right now!
I’m a bit late with this month’s prize drawing, so without further ado, here’s what you need to do:
To enter The Impulsive Buy’s $25 McDonald’s gift card prize drawing, leave a comment with THIS post. Your comment MUST INCLUDE one of the following:
1. Your favorite Happy Meal toy of all time.
2. Your favorite Chicken McNuggets sauce of all time.
3. A 200-word letter addressed to the McDonald’s Hawaii corporate offices that shows your disgust about Hawaii McDonald’s locations not offering the S’mores Pie.
4. The words, “robble robble.”
Please don’t forget to fill out the email field because I’ll be emailing the randomly selected winner for his or her mailing address. The Impulsive Buy will stop accepting entries on Friday, August 31, 2012 11:59 p.m. Hawaii Standard Time. Only one comment allowed per person, and it’s only open to U.S. residents who are at least 18 years old.
For those of you who have a Twitter account, you can get an additional entry by tweeting the following by Friday, August 31, 2012 11:59 p.m. Hawaii Standard Time:
Hey @theimpulsivebuy! ROBBLE ROBBLE! #gonnastealmesomecheeseburgers
So just copy, paste, and tweet. Only one tweet per Twitter account.
Good luck!
Fine Print: McDonald’s is not affiliated with this prize drawing. The Impulsive Buy promises your email address will not be used to send you anything about generic Canadian prescription drugs. The Impulsive Buy also promises your mailing address will not be used to send you AARP notices, even though you’re under 40 years old. Bribes will not be accepted. The Impulsive Buy will not be responsible for lost mail, damaged mail, or your decision to purchase 100 Chicken McNuggets using the gift card.
What happens when you combine a McDonald’s Apple Pie with their soft serve? Find out in this video review.
Length – 2 min. 36 sec.
Here are some new products found on store shelves by us and your fellow readers. We may or may not review them, but we’d like to let you know what new items are popping up. We’ll also occasionally throw in an unusual product.
Baking technology FTW! So I take it these are basically huge canisters filled with the stuff that’s found in Betty Crocker’s Warm Delights. No need for vegetable oil and no need to crack eggs and then dig around in the egg whites for bits of egg shells that accidentally fell in because I hit the edge of the bowl too hard with the egg.
I prefer chunky peanut butter over creamy peanut butter, but I don’t like how I go through a jar of the chunky stuff much faster than a jar of the creamy stuff. And I’m afraid I would go through a 12-ounce jar of Planters NUT-rition in a week because not only are there peanuts mixed in, there are also things like raisins, granola, peanuts, and banana chips. Option Pitch and Waffle Crisp reviewed one of the flavors.
Cream of Wheat has been around for over 100 years and only now they come out with a chocolate flavor. Geez, Cream of Wheat has been making people suffer throughout bowls and bowls of regular Cream of Wheat for a very, very long time. Thanks for the photo, Bobby!
Thanks, Hello Kitty, for this gummy treat shaped like your head that will ensure I get my vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin D3, vitamin E, vitamin B6, folic acid, vitamin B12, biotin, pantothenic acid, iodine, zinc, choline, and meso-inositol.
If you’re out shopping and see a new product on the shelf (or really unusual), snap a picture of it, email it to us at theimpulsivebuy@gmail.com with “Spotted” in the subject line, and you might see it in our next Spotted on Shelves post.
Somewhere on the edges of the globe, nestled between the marshes of Keebler County and Cascadian Farms, rests the town of General Mills. It is in this land of cuckoo birds and marshmallow balloons that a legend resides.
And his name…
Is Wendell.
He looks like a Wendell, doesn’t he?
What with his half-moon spectacles and rotund little nose, Wendell seems unassuming enough, but don’t be fooled. He has connections with the Keebler elves. He landed in General Mills in 1987 with a single dream: to put toast in a bowl, and, after many long nights beside his magical toaster and a cinnamon-related explosion, he got the recipe for Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Back in 2001, he channeled his Cinnamon cereal craze into the smash hit: “Cinnamon Toast Crunch Milk-N-Cereal Bar.” Now, he’s bringing it home in a smaller, portion-friendly treat.
Judging by the cover, Wendell’s stepped away from his toaster to mix up a hearty batch of “yogurt coating.” No lie: this was the very thing that pulled me in to this bar. As a connoisseur of the yogurt-covered pretzel, I can’t resist a yogurt coating, and, indeed, I was elated when I discovered that a yogurt squiggle accompanied the yogurt-dipped foundation of the bar.
I’m thinking these little crisps were made for lunchtime and would fit snuggly in a lunchbox/briefcase/purse/other portable vessel of preference. The list of ingredients seems a mile long, but, in summary, it involves cinnamon, icing, and gooeyness and, as we all know, those are the ingredients involved in sustaining a happy relationship. Had a disagreement with your spouse? Bake something with cinnamon and, instantly, it smells like somebody loves you. Top that baked good with icing? Well, you can just kick back and watch the magic unfold.
Now, before diving into the texture of this bar, I’d like to step back for a brief moment to define the adjective “chewy.” Quaker has obfuscated (word of the day!) this term with their “Chewy” granola bars for years. If a food is “chewy,” it has a certain pull, being both somewhat firm and somewhat sticky. Caramels are chewy. Taffy is chewy. That yummy nougat in Snickers bars is chewy. Stale rice cereal smooshed with uncooked oats? Not chewy, Quaker, not chewy.
Now, these, on the other hand, actually do have a bit of a chew and are a fair amount denser than their Quaker counterparts, which gets them off to a good start. On first bite, they even have a bit of a crisp, but, in the end, this crisp ended on the note of “Stale Cinnamon Toast Crunch,” which was disappointing for a product that had hopes to bounce me over the heart, stars, horseshoes, clovers, and blue moons. The yogurt coating does its best for what this lacks in texture, but alas, fair Wendell, the faint wisps of cinnamon in your bar are no match for this weak consistency and overwhelming taste of corn syrup.
However, on an up note, these do have a bit of whole grain and there was enough of the yogurt to make me smile at the end, making these treats far better than the imagination-crushing, depression-inducing Quaker “Chewy” Granola bars. Nonetheless, next time I have the Cinnamon-Toast-Crunch craving, I’ll probably reach for the bowl and spoon before I nab a treat.
(Nutrition Facts – 1 bar – 100 calories, 25 calories from fat, 3 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 100 milligrams of sodium, 18 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 8 grams of sugar, less than 1 gram of protein, and a little vitamins and minerals.)
Other Cinnamon Toast Crunch Treats reviews:
Truly Foody
Item: General Mills Cinnamon Toast Crunch Treats
Purchased Price: $2.84 (on sale)
Size: 1 box/6 bars
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Yogurt coating on the base. Yogurt squiggles. Cinnamon. Wendell. A friendly portion. Whole grain. Lunchboxes. The word “Obfuscate.” Half-moon spectacles. A land filled with marshmallow balloons.
Cons: The texture of stale cereal. Corn syrup overpowers cinnamon. Using the word “chewy” incorrectly. Crushers of the imagination.