Tag: Kellogg’s

REVIEW: Kellogg’s Eggo Real Fruit Pizza Mixed Berry Granola

Kelley 14 Comments

Eggo Real Fruit Pizza Mixed Berry Granola

The Kellogg’s Eggo Real Fruit Pizza Mixed Berry Granola was inevitable, which is unfortunate. If you break it down, you’ve got two food innovations (I use the term semi-sarcastically) that came together in a perfect storm of potential horror.

On the one hand, you’ve got the gourmet pizza movement, which cropped up a few decades ago. Based entirely on shit someone told me with no empirical evidence, Wolfgang Puck made the first gourmet pizza, so you can blame him for shit like cream cheese smoked salmon pizza and foie gras pizza and god knows what else. I also blame, again, with very little evidence, California Pizza Kitchen for bringing gourmet pizza to the masses, with creations like cheeseburger pizza and Pear & Gorgonzola pizza. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some gourmet pizza and non-traditional toppings. One of the little local pizza joints in my town has a $10 large unlimited topping offer that I abuse on a regular basis to create my own monstrosities. White pizza with a butter parmesan crust with double green olives, feta, onion, tomatoes and artichoke hearts, anyone? I wouldn’t be surprised if they take that deal off the table because I’m single-handedly putting them out of business.

The other part of this equation is the recent explosion of breakfast frozen food products. I don’t know when this started – maybe it’s been around for quite a while and I just never noticed – but I seem to remember a time when, if you wanted a breakfast frozen food, you grabbed yourself a box of Eggo waffles and shut the fuck up about it. Now you’ve got crazy options, from sausage Mcmuffins to bowls with all your shit thrown together to…whatever in God’s name this is.

My point, quite obviously by now, is that Eggo took these two concepts, herded them into a small pen, watched them do the nasty, and what came out a couple minutes later (food gestates quickly) was the Eggo Real Fruit Pizza. They wiped off the amniotic maple syrup and disgusting globs of strawberry jam and said, “I think we’ve got something here.” Kind of like how my friends think their newborn babies are cute, and I think they look like horrible aliens.

I hadn’t noticed this before, but there’s a strange purple sauce-like substance underneath the toppings. Ugh, is that supposed to be yogurt? I am not looking forward to having hot yogurt in my mouth. I’m also not comfortable with that sentence.

The instructions are simple: unwrap the pizza, flip the box over that it was resting in, set it on the silver circle on the back of the container, and throw it in the microwave for a minute to 1 1/2 minutes. I split the difference, and stuck it in there for 1 1/4 minutes. It was still a little cold in the middle, so I stuck it in for the extra 15, but my microwave is also a piece of shit, so bare that in mind. Waiting a minute and a half for a quick breakfast when you’re on the go is a little impressive. It takes me longer to smear cream cheese on a bagel. I have some pretty strict rules about cream cheese.

Eggo Real Fruit Pizza Mixed Berry Granola

It actually smells pretty good coming out of the microwave. It smells like a bowl of oatmeal that has berries and granola in it – warm and inviting, something you’d want to eat on a cold, snowy day. Unfortunately it’s 106 and humid right now where I live, but I’ll close my eyes and use my imagination.

There’s obviously blueberries going on, scattered about the top of the pizza, shriveled up as they tend to do when cooked. They’re distributed nicely, but I would have liked to have seen a few more of them.

I don’t see any other recognizable berries, but there’s some red glop haphazardly strewn over the top. I took some off and tasted it by itself, and it tastes like they took some raspberries and turned them into a puree. It’s definitely real raspberries; it’s got that delicious tartness of the berry and I even got some seeds stuck in my teeth, which is the one thing that annoys me about raspberries. But I welcome them here, since they offer proof of real berry, unless Eggo spent millions of dollars attempting to create a facsimile of raspberry seeds to fool consumers. Probably a lot easier just to throw some berries in a blender and hold true to their claims of “real fruit.”

The dreaded yogurt sauce was nothing to fear after all. It’s very thin, and when I tasted it on its own, it had the faint flavor of mixed berry yogurt, but it was very mild and inoffensive. The granola is spread generously on one side of the pizza, but tapers out until there’s barely any on the other side.

I was truly surprised to see that the crust wasn’t actually a waffle. If I’d look more closely at the box, I might have figured it out, but my mind associates “Eggo” with “waffles” so decisively that I just assumed that would be the case. Instead, the dough of this “pizza” seems to be made out of wheat. It looks like a thin crust pizza crust, except darker. Unfortunately, it’s tasteless, soggy and way too chewy. I’m not even really sure what to call it. Wheat…pizza crust…thing. Except it tastes more like a bland PowerBar than a pizza crust.

There seem to be two fundamental problems with the Eggo Real Fruit Pizza Mixed Berry Granola: sogginess and poor topping distribution. The crust and the granola were both way too soggy. Perhaps it would have turned out better if I’d cooked it in the oven, but if you’re eating fruit pizza for breakfast, you either don’t have time to wait for the oven to preheat, you’re a college student who doesn’t even own an oven or you’re young enough that you’re not allowed to use the oven.

As far as the toppings go, the mysterious purple sauce was thin to the point where in some places, you could see bare patches of crust. The raspberry puree, which I think is the best part of this item, is strewn halfheartedly across the pizza, globbed up in some places and simply nonexistent in others. The granola is piled high on one half the pizza, but peters out into scattered flakes.

I have to say, I expected this whole “fruit pizza” thing to be a horror show. Instead, it just left me disappointed. If done correctly, it would have been quite tasty. A less chewy, less soggy, more flavorful crust, coated thickly with the delicious raspberry puree, a generous layer of crispy granola, and piled high with blueberries, would have actually been something that I’d consider spending 1 1/2 minutes nuking in the morning for a quick breakfast. Unfortunately, that’s not what the Eggo Real Fruit Pizza Mixed Berry Granola really is, so I think I’ll just stick with real pizza for breakfast. That box of double green olives, feta, and everything else pizza that’s been sitting out on the counter all night looks pretty good right now.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 individual-size pizza (5.3 ounces) — 390 calories, 110 calories from fat, 13 grams of total fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 3 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 2.5 grams of monounsaturated fat, 15 milligrams of cholesterol, 390 milligrams of sodium, , 62 grams of total carbohydrates, 4 grams of dietary fiber, 17 grams of sugars, 10 grams of protein, 0% vitamin A, 6% calcium, 0% vitamin C and 8% iron.)

Item: Kellogg’s Eggo Real Fruit Pizza Mixed Berry Granola
Price: $1.67 (on sale; normally $3.29)
Size: 1 individual-size pizza (5.3 ounces)
Purchased at: Albertson’s
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Raspberry puree was delicious. Taking advantage of unlimited topping deals. Quick and easy to make. Purple sauce was not scary.
Cons: Soggy, tasteless crust and soggy granola. “Hot yogurt in my mouth” making me uneasy. Uneven and sloppily applied toppings. Just the idea of fruit pizza making me shudder. 46 percent of total fat was saturated fat on what appears on the surface to be a healthy food item.

REVIEW: Frosted Wild! Grape Pop-Tarts

Marvo 11 Comments

An exclamation point is used to show excitement, pain, anger and, depending on the amount used, the degree of your LOL. Of those options, I’m not sure what the exclamation point in the Frosted Wild! Grape Pop-Tarts is trying to express. Maybe it’s the pain and/or anger of the grapes who are disappointed they were used in a filling for a toaster pastry instead of a fine Merlot wine from Napa Valley.

Or the unnecessary punctuation could be trying to show some excitement. Although, even though an exclamation point looks like an erection, there’s nothing really thrilling about grape Pop-Tarts. The only punctuations I feel best describe this latest Pop-Tarts flavor is a colon, following by a hyphen and then a vertical bar.

As you can see on the box, each Pop-Tart is baked with real fruit…oh, I’m sorry…Real Fruit! But this means absolutely nothing if you’re trying to consume your recommended daily servings of fruit since the filling is made up of only 10 percent fruit. Also, like all Pop-Tarts, each one is fortified with sad amounts of vitamins and minerals. These pitiful amounts are as satisfying as trying to masturbate to pictures of Amish women because only around 10 percent of their skin is showing.

If you’re expected the Frosted Wild! Grape Pop-Tarts to be healthier than, let’s say Chocolate Banana Split Pop-Tarts, because it contains a little fruit, you will be disappointed. But honestly, just by looking at it, it’s easy to see it’s not the most healthiest item you can have as part of a complete breakfast. Try to name me any product with purple frosting and a radioactive green-colored drizzle that is healthy.

I’ve tried a lot of different Pop-Tart flavors in my lifetime and I have to say the Wild! Grape flavor is probably near the bottom of my favorite Pop-Tart flavors list, although I did like it. The grape flavor is a familiar one that I’ve tasted with either a grape candy or juice and it’s not overly sweet like some of the dessert flavored Pop-Tarts. It’s decent tasting, but if I want a fruit flavored Pop-Tart I’d prefer the frosted strawberry or blueberry ones. But if I want to be masochistic, deprive myself of sugary goodness and avoid unnecessary punctuation marks, I’ll purchase unfrosted Pop-Tarts.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 pastry – 200 calories, 5 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 170 milligrams of sodium, 36 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 17 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein, 10% vitamin A, 10% iron, 10% thiamin, 10% riboflavin, 10% niacin, 10% vitamin B6 and 8% folic acid.)

Item: Frosted Wild! Grape Pop-Tarts
Price: $3.00 (on sale)
Size: 8 pastries
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Tastes decent toasted, straight out of the box or frozen. No trans fat. Using an exclamation point to express excitement. Exclamation point is an erect phallic punctuation.
Cons: Not one of my favorite flavors. Unnecessary use of an exclamation point. Contains high fructose corn syrup. Poor amounts of vitamins, minerals and fruit. Purple frosting and radioactive green drizzle is a little offputting. Trying to masturbate to pictures of heavily clothed Amish women. 😐

REVIEW: Kellogg’s Chocolatey Peanut Butter Fiber Plus Antioxidants Chewy Bars

Marvo 14 Comments

Fiber PLUS antioxidants!?! It’s like Kellogg’s is trying to kill us with wholesomeness with their Chocolatey Peanut Butter Fiber Plus Antioxidants Chewy Bars. Being bear hugged by vitamin E, zinc and 35 percent of my daily recommended intake of fiber seems kind of scary, especially the fiber, because the combination of being squeezed hard and a lot of dietary fiber cannot be good for my pants.

But I guess it’s better than Kellogg’s killing us with Tony the Tiger’s sharp claws or the reality shows on MTV and VH1 killing my hope for humanity.

The Chocolatey Peanut Butter Fiber Plus Antioxidants Chewy Bars takes oats, rice crisps, peanuts, and peanut butter chips and smashes them together into a neat rectangular bar that measures 3.5 inches long and 1.25 inches wide. The back of the bar is dipped in faux chocolate and the front is drizzled in faux chocolate, creating a snack that’s like a sticky Chinese finger trap.

While these contain normal ingredients that one would find in many snack bars, I was surprised to see chicory root extract as the ingredient that’s listed first. I personally thought the number one ingredient was going to be love. Now many of you might be wondering, “What is chicory root?” I could be a total asshole and say in a condescending tone, “Duh! It’s the root of a chicory plant.”

Or I can admit, I have no idea. Thankfully, I can look it up on every student’s favorite resource that most teachers and professors don’t approve of because of the chance that the information provided is inaccurate — Wikipedia. According to the omniscient website, chicory root extract is used as a high-fiber dietary supplement, which explains the nine grams of dietary fiber per bar.

As you can see in the picture above, the Chocolatey Peanut Butter Fiber Plus Antioxidants Chewy Bar doesn’t look like a food that will provide you with fiber and antioxidants. Instead it looks like something that might give you diabetes and/or a fat ass. The bar has a chewy and slightly crunchy texture that’s common with many snack bars nowadays. The peanut butter chips and peanuts do a good job of compensating the faux chocolate, which is faux because it lacks cocoa fats. These ingredients make for a tasty snack bar, proving that even fake chocolate and peanut butter can make a decent combination.

I’d probably eat these Fiber Plus Antioxidant Bars if I want to quickly make up for the lack of fiber, vitamin E and zinc in my diet because I’m too lazy to pour myself a bowl of any fortified kid’s cereal or get those nutrients via fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 bar – 130 calories, 5 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, less than 0.5 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 95 milligrams of sodium, 24 grams of carbohydrates, 9 grams of fiber, 7 grams of sugar, 3 grams of protein, 10% calcium, 20% vitamin E, 2% iron and 20% zinc.)

(NOTE: Food In Real Life also reviewed it.)

Item: Kellogg’s Chocolatey Peanut Butter Fiber Plus Antioxidants Chewy Bars
Price: $3.19
Size: 5 bars
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Faux chocolate and peanut butter makes a decent combination. Chewy and crunchy. 7 grams of whole grains per serving. 35 percent of your daily fiber. Contains vitamin E and zinc. Learning about chicory root. Wikipedia. Chinese finger traps.
Cons: Contains faux chocolate. Contains less than 0.5 grams of trans fat. Getting nutrients from a snack bar. 5 bars per box (whatever happened to even numbers). MTV and VH1 reality shows. Being bear hugged after eating a lot of fiber. Chinese finger traps.

REVIEW: Kellogg’s Cinnabon Bars (Original and Caramel)

Marvo 18 Comments

Even if it has the name Cinnabon on its packaging, like the Kellogg’s Cinnabon Bars, how can any product reach the high level that a fresh Cinnabon cinnamon roll achieves? It’s impossible to match the orgasmic combination of warm dough, Makara Cinnamon and cream cheese frosting.

That triple threat has the power to make people push back their diets for one more day. It can make a happy, fat kid happier AND fatter at the same time. It can makes those who are anal about cleanliness say, “fuck it” and let their mouths and finger become coated with sugar, cinnamon and frosting, because they know trying to keep clean while eating a fresh Cinnabon will always be a losing battle.

Just the scent alone of warm Cinnabons baking in the oven is extremely powerful. It draws you to the Cinnabon store located at the mall. It’s like smelling pheromones or being caught in the tractor beam of the Death Star. All you can do is just give up and let the Stormtroopers board you. One whiff of it may make your mind say no, but it makes your tongue, stomach and fat ass say yes.

Comparing these Kellogg’s Cinnabon Bars with fresh (or even reheated) Cinnabon rolls is like comparing an iPhone with its cheap Chinese rip off, the uPhone. It’s like comparing Neiman Marcus with Sears or JCPenney. It’s like the difference between silicone breast implants and water-filled plastic bags with a goldfish. These bars don’t even come close to capturing the essence of a Cinnabon cinnamon roll.

Both flavors, Original and Caramel, are sweet but they don’t give me a sugar erection like an actual Cinnabon does, probably because they don’t come close to tasting like one. Neither of them contains Cinnabon’s famous Makara Cinnamon, which, again, is part of the orgasmic combination that makes a Cinnabon roll the dieter’s devil. They claim on the box that it “tastes great warm,” but I really couldn’t trust them because the microwaving instructions on the box turned out to be quite inaccurate. It said it takes 3 SECOND on HIGH, but that isn’t enough time to warm up anything. It took about ten seconds to make them slightly warm, but doing so made them extremely fragile.

The Kellogg’s Cinnabon Bars weren’t very good warm or straight out of the wrapper. They had a boring flavor to them. If they had Makara Cinnamon in them, they might’ve been better, but I highly doubt Cinnabon would let anyone near their stash. Because they don’t have that delectable spice, I don’t think they deserve to have the Cinnabon name attached to it. Besides, eating one of these bars doesn’t fill me with regret or cause me to gain a couple of pounds, like a real Cinnabon cinnamon roll does.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 bar – Original – 150 calories, 4.5 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 130 milligrams of sodium, 26 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 13 grams of sugar and 1 gram of protein. Caramel – 150 calories, 4 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 65 milligrams of sodium, 27 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 14 grams of sugar and 1 gram of protein.)

Item: Kellogg’s Cinnabon Bars (Original and Caramel)
Price: $3.19 each
Size: 6 bars
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 3 out of 10
Pros: Cleaner than eating a Cinnabon cinnamon roll. Healthier than a Cinnabon cinnamon roll. The smell of a Cinnabon store. iPhones. Silicone breast implants. A warm Cinnabon cinnamon roll.
Cons: Weren’t very good. Doesn’t taste anything like a Cinnabon cinnamon roll. Doesn’t contain Cinnabon’s Makara Cinnamon. Bars are kind of small. Instructions to warm them up for only 3 seconds are ineffective. Warming them up makes them fragile. Contains high fructose corn syrup. A warm Cinnabon cinnamon roll.

REVIEW: Kellogg’s Blueberry Muffin Pop-Tarts

Marvo 13 Comments

Oh. Dear. Lord. Stop reproducing, Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts!

You’re making the Octomom and all the reality show fertility families on TLC look normal. What are you up to now, forty or so offspring? I bet they just slide right out of you now, yelling “Weeeeee!!!” as they come through your birth canal. Aren’t you almost 50 years old? Aren’t you too old to be reproducing? It’s dangerous at your age. Or maybe you’re trying to get your own reality show on TLC called “Poppin’ Out Tarts Until Menopause Starts”?

By now you’re also probably running out of names because your latest kid’s name, Blueberry Muffin, sounds like an exiled Strawberry Shortcake character or a slightly chubby stripper who is into autoerotic asphyxiation. I hope you don’t name your next child, Poppy Seed Muffin Pop-Tarts, because, really, if you think about it, that should be your name.

Well, at least your Blueberry Muffin Pop-Tarts sound like something that can be eaten for breakfast, which Pop-Tarts was originally made for. It’s unlike many of the offspring you’ve delivered over the past few years, which were more like desserts than breakfast pastries. Also, now that I think about it, most of them had stripper names: Hot Chocolate, Cookies and Cream and Chocolate Banana Split.

Your Blueberry Muffin Pop-Tarts look very similar to other frosted Pop-Tarts, so I guess you’re not jumping over the fence. It has a light yellow crust with blueberry muffin flavor and blueberry bits filling and white frosting with brown and blue sprinkles on top. It doesn’t taste like a blueberry muffin, instead it tastes like a less sweet Frosted Blueberry Pop-Tart. The blueberry flavor wasn’t overwhelming, which was due to the filling not containing much blueberry flavor. But if blueberry muffins tasted like this Pop-Tart, I would be breaking out my muffin pans and inner Betty Crocker to make them every day, because I really liked the flavor of these Blueberry Muffin Pop-Tarts.

Hmm…Now I’m torn, Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts. I want you to stop reproducing, because it just isn’t safe (or pretty) at your age. But I want you to continue reproducing so that I can see if you come up with something as good as your Blueberry Muffin Pop-Tarts.

(sigh)

Continue reproducing. Weeeeee!!!

(Nutrition Facts – 1 pastry – 200 calories, 5 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 200 milligrams of sodium, 35 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 16 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein and a bunch of vitamins and minerals.)

Item: Kellogg’s Blueberry Muffin Pop-Tarts
Price: $2.49
Size: 8 pastries
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Good. Not overly sweet like a regular Frosted Blueberry Pop-Tart. Blueberry flavor wasn’t overwhelming. It’s a Pop-Tart that sounds like it can be eaten for breakfast. Vitamins and minerals. My inner Betty Crocker. Weeeee!!!
Cons: Doesn’t taste like a blueberry muffin. Has a stripper’s name. Having more than 40 children. A reality show on TLC called “Poppin’ Out Tarts Until Menopause Starts.”