Tag: Post Cereals

REVIEW: Honey Bunches of Oats with Pecan Bunches

Marvo 6 Comments

Despite the fact that the corn flakes in any Honey Bunches of Oats cereal gets soggy faster than the armpits of the shirt I wear when I go running, I enjoy most of the varieties of Honey Bunches of Oats.

I guess the crunch from the oats make up for the limp flakes or maybe I’m just tired of women passing by me in the grocery store and giving me the you-must-be-a-virgin-look when they see boxes of Froot Loops and Count Chocula in my cart.

While I still like to buy cereals usually loved by eight-year-olds, I’m grateful for Honey Bunches of Oats because it helped me transition over to healthier cereals, like Raisin Bran and whatever wholesomeness Kashi pumps out to get their 7 Whole Grains into our bodies.

Honey Bunches of Oats with Pecan Bunches is the latest in a long line of Honey Bunches of Oats cereals. With so many varieties, I guess you can say there’s a bunch of Honey Bunches of Oats. And if you were hanging out with 1980s superduo, Hall & Oates, because you find Oates’ mustache mesmerizing, I guess you could say there’s a bunch of Honey Bunches of Oats, John Oates.

Honey Bunches of Oats with Pecan Bunches is by far not horrible tasting, but it doesn’t taste any different than regular Honey Roasted Honey Bunches of Oats. If you were to blindfold me with a Members Only jacket you stole from John Oates, or blindfold me with his huge mustache, and had me eat from a bowl of regular Honey Bunches of Oats and the Pecan Bunches version, I probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. The pecan flavor is almost non-existent, so I’m wondering if Post actually tried the cereal.

If you’re trying to accomplish a gastronomical equivalent of barhopping by trying to eat every single variety of Honey Bunches of Oats, you should go ahead and eat a bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats with Pecan Bunches. But if you love pecan, like I love the feel of melted wax on my skin, you will disappointed.

(Nutrition Facts – 3/4 cups without milk – 110 calories, 1.5 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0.5 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 1 gram of monounsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 140 milligrams of sodium, 60 milligrams of potassium, 24 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 5 grams of sugar, 17 grams of other carbohydrates, 2 grams of protein and a bunch of vitamins and minerals.)

Item: Honey Bunches of Oats with Pecan Bunches
Price: $5.39
Size: 14.5 ounces
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Not horrible tasting. A bunch of vitamins and minerals. Melted wax on my skin. John Oates’ mustache. Combing John Oates’ mustache. Being the comb that combs John Oates’ mustache.
Cons: Pecan bunches don’t have much flavor. Tastes just like regular Honey Roasted Honey Bunches of Oats. Flakes get soggy really fast. The pitiful amount of honey in it would piss Winnie the Pooh off.

REVIEW: Post Cinna-Graham Honeycomb

Marvo 10 Comments

Reporter: Thank you for taking the time to talk with me I’m sure you two are very BUSY.

Bee #1 HA! You exaggerated “busy” because we’re bees. Good one! It’s not like we’ve heard that line thousands of times.

Bee #2: Don’t make me sting you, bitch.

Reporter: I’m sorry. That was my poor attempt to break the ice. I’ve never interviewed bees before. Let’s just move on. What are your thoughts about the scientists in Australia who are giving honeybees, like yourselves, cocaine to see its effects?

Bee #1: What do I think? I think that’s bullshit. Because why do honeybees in Australia get to have all the fun? While they’re getting high, drinking Tooheys and partying with beautiful Aussie scientists, we’re busting our black and yellow butts to build this huge honeycomb for our queen bee and collect pollen from flowers to make honey. To be honest, I’d rather overdose on cocaine than secrete wax from my body for that bitch queen bee.

Reporter: You don’t think giving honeybees liquefied freebase cocaine is a bad thing?

Bee #1: The only thing bad about it is that there aren’t any scientist here with the balls to do it. Besides, what else are they going to give cocaine to? Flies? They’ll buzz around anything. Bees buzz around things that smell good, like flowers, so if bees high from cocaine were to buzz around shit, puke or anything else you humans secrete from your bodies you could determine the cocaine had an effect on us. But for flies, buzzing around that kind of stuff is normal.

Reporter: You don’t think what they’re doing is considered cruelty to insects?

Bee #1: Look, if PETA wants to get naked, paint their bodies black and yellow, and parade themselves in front of us to protest, I’m fine with that because it’s better than looking at our slutty queen bee who goes out and gets nasty with more than a dozen other bees. The only thing I ask is that Pam Anderson doesn’t show up because I’ve seen her naked so many times that she no longer gets my stinger up.

Bee #2: Don’t make me sting you, bitch.

Reporter: Is that all your friend is going to say?

Bee #1: Hey, man! Give my friend a break. He’s got cabin fever. It’s hard working and living in a hive where it’s a total sausagefest and he has to poop out wax for the honeycomb.

Reporter: Too bad you couldn’t just make the honeycomb out of Post Cinna-Graham Honeycomb cereal.

Bee #1: W-w-what’s this Post Cinna-Graham Honeycomb cereal you speak of?

Reporter: It’s a cereal that’s shaped somewhat like the honeycombs you bees make.

Bee #1: So what you’re saying is that there’s a pre-fab way to make the honeycomb that doesn’t involve us shitting out wax? Sign. Me. Up.

Reporter: I don’t think it works that way.

Bee #2: Don’t make me sting you, bitch.

Reporter: It’s a breakfast cereal that we humans eat. Usually, it’s just honey flavored, but this version has a hint of cinnamon and graham crackers. It smells like graham crackers, but when I put a spoonful in my mouth both flavors weren’t very strong. The cinnamon was what I tasted first and then the graham cracker, which was more like a diet graham cracker. It’s not bad, but I was hoping it would be as sweet as the honey you bees produce or like Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Bee #1: Great…This has been one depressing interview, man. First, you tell me Australian honeybees get to have cocaine and then you have me believe there’s an easier way to build a honeycomb. What bad thing are you going to tell me next? If both of us sting you, we’re going to die?

Reporter: Um, well yeah…

Bee #1: Well I’m going to go sting a muthafucker and that muthafucker is you!

Bee #2: I’m going to sting you, bitch.

(Nutrition Facts – 1.5 cups – 130 calories, 1.5 grams of fat, 0.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 190 milligrams of sodium, 60 milligrams of potassium, 27 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 10 grams of sugar, 15 grams of other carbohydrates, 2 grams of protein, and fortified with a bunch of vitamins and minerals.)

Item: Post Cinna-Graham Honeycomb
Price: $6.49
Size: 14.5 ounces
Purchased at: Star Market
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Decent tasting. Smells like graham crackers. Huge ass box for the big ass cereal pieces. Fortified with vitamins and minerals. Stays crunch in milk for a decent amount of time.
Cons: Light cinnamon and graham cracker taste. Getting stung by bees. Pooping wax. Cabin fever. Can’t use Honeycomb cereal to help build actual honeycombs. Flies.

REVIEW: Post Dino S’mores Pebbles

Marvo 16 Comments

I think the Post Dino S’mores Pebbles cereal was created by Fred Flintstone so that there’s a Pebbles cereal Barney could steal from Fred that wouldn’t get him upset and yell, “Barney, my Pebbles.” I believe my theory is correct because this cereal is extremely bland and is something Fred wouldn’t care about if it got stolen. It’s like Post took everything that was great about Cocoa Pebbles and instead of sticking it into this cereal, they shoved it down a snaggle-toothed pig garbage disposal. I don’t know why Dino would want his name associated with this product because it’s something that he would either bury in the backyard and forget about or squeeze out as a steaming pile of poop.

I was hoping the marshmallowy boulders, graham bone shapes, and crunchy chocolatey nuggets would create a s’mores flavor that would take me back to my Boy Scout camp days when we would take showers as one big naked group, wear shorts with an inseam that would make Daisy Duke wearers blush, spray enough mosquito repellant on our bodies to ensure future sterilization, and sit around the campfire building the perfect s’more that was made up of one-third of a Hershey’s bar, with one well-done giant marshmallow, and in between two Honey Maid graham crackers. Unfortunately, the three parts of the Dino S’mores Pebbles cereal couldn’t bring back those memories because those three combined did not taste anything resembling s’mores. If I was at a camp that had s’mores that tasted like this cereal, I would cry like a baby, call for my mommy, and pee in my pants to ensure I would be sent home.

The chocolatey nuggets were not even close to being as chocolatey as Cocoa Pebbles or Cocoa Krispies. The marshmallow boulders and graham bone shapes weren’t very plentiful in the cereal. If you were a microorganism, the marshmallow boulders would actually seem like a large rocks that have the capacity to flatten you, but the small freeze-dried marshmallows that come in hot chocolate packets made the marshmallows in this cereal seem like specks of dirt.

S’mores are supposed to be delicious and messy. Sure, during Boy Scout camp I later regretting eating a dozen of them in one sitting while pooping into a hole in the ground, but while I was eating them, that sugar bomb tasted like a warm hug in my mouth. The Dino S’mores Pebbles cereal is more like a towel whip to the ass in the group shower.

(Nutrition Facts – 3/4 cups – 100 calories, 1.5 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 60 milligrams of sodium, 80 milligrams of potassium, 24 grams of carbohydrates, 4 grams of dietary fiber, 11 grams of sugar, 9 grams of other carbohydrates, 1 gram of protein, and a bunch of vitamins and minerals.)

Item: Post Dino S’mores Pebbles
Price: $4.99
Size: 11.5 ounces
Purchased at: Star Market
Rating: 2 out of 10
Pros: Vitamins and minerals. Actual s’mores.
Cons: Boring, bland. Tastes nothing like s’mores. Not chocolatey. Marshmallow boulders are small. Marshmallow boulders and graham bone shapes aren’t very plentiful. Group showers. Old Boy Scout uniforms. Pooping into a hole in the ground. A towel whip to the ass in the group shower.

Caramel Honey Bunches of Oats Just Bunches!

Marvo 16 Comments

When Post introduced the new Caramel Honey Bunches of Oats Just Bunches! cereal, I realized I no longer had a use for Sally (not her actual name, because I can’t pronounce her real name), the 8-year-old illegal immigrant Chinese girl I paid $1 a month to separate the bunches from my Honey Bunches of Oats cereal. Believe me it was worth the dollar to separate the flakes and the bunches in the cereal, because the bunches are the best part — they have all the flavor.

Some of you might be appalled by my blatant ignoring of child labor laws, but I will tell you that I treated Sally much better than she would have been treated in China. Not only did I pay her a dollar a month, I also let her eat all the Honey Bunches of Oats flakes she could eat, since I wasn’t eating them, but she had to provide her own milk, because I’m not a cow. I also taught her English by making her work in front of a television throughout the day. So far, she can say pretty well, “Survey says…” and “Come on down! You’re the next contestant on the Price is Right!”

When I showed Sally the box of Just Bunches! cereal and told her she was free to leave, she smiled and said, “cao ni zuzong shiba dai wonang fei” which at the time I thought it meant “thank you very much” in Chinese, but later found out that it really means, “Go fuck your ancestors to the eighteenth generation, loser.”

The Caramel Honey Bunches of Oats Just Bunches! cereal looks like I took a granola bar out of a hippie’s hands and beat them with it, causing the bar to break down into small pieces. The box it comes in is Grape Nuts-ish, which means it’s significantly smaller than most other cereal boxes because the cereal doesn’t take up much space, just like brains in the skulls of all contestants who are hoping to find love through a reality show. Because the bunches take up less space, I’m unable to determine what’s a good serving size without hauling out measuring cups. According to the box, there are eight 2/3 cup servings per box, but it took me four normal-to-me-sized bowls to eat all of it.

The cereal has a sticky, sweet smell and its caramel taste seemed very artificial, but neither of those were the most disturbing attributes of the Caramel Just Bunches! cereal. What was unsettling was its unnatural crunchiness after sitting in milk for ten minutes; its ability to turn skim milk brownish, a little thicker, and gross; and the use of a fucking exclamation point in its name. It’s a cereal, not a fucking energy drink.

As you can tell, I didn’t really care for the Caramel Honey Bunches of Oats Just Bunches! cereal, but there’s also a version with honey roasted bunches, just like the ones I paid Sally pick out, so maybe those will be better, but if not, I need to go find Sally and give her a 25 cent raise to encourage her to come back.

(Nutrition Facts – 2/3 cup – 250 calories, 7 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 2 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 3.5 grams of monounsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 90 milligrams of sodium, 135 milligrams of potassium, 43 grams of carbohydrates, 4 grams of dietary fiber, 14 grams of sugar, 25 grams of other carbohydrates, 5 grams of protein, a whole lot of vitamins and minerals, and one less illegal immigrant.)

(Editor’s Note: Thanks to TIB reader Jessica for recommending the Just Bunches! cereal. She now owes me protection from child labor laws.)

Item: Caramel Honey Bunches of Oats Just Bunches!
Price: $3.00 (on sale)
Size: 17 ounces
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 3 out of 10
Pros: Stays crunchy in milk. Vitamins and minerals. Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat. 4 grams of fiber. Paying someone a dollar per month to separate the bunches and the flakes in Honey Bunches of Oats cereal. Learning English through game shows.
Cons: Very artificial caramel flavor. Sticky, sweet smell. Turns milk gross. Enough in box for only four manly-sized bowls. Unnecessary use of an exclamation point in its name. Ignoring child labor laws.

REVIEW: Honey Bunches of Oats with Real Chocolate Clusters

Marvo 24 Comments

I do not know if any of you noticed, but Honey Bunches of Oats is reproducing like rabbits and I bet people in China are pissed. While each couple in China can have only one child, an asexual semi-healthy cereal can have seven offspring, with the possibility of more. I bet you right now that Honey Bunches of Oats is off somewhere breeding. Its most recent spawn is the Honey Bunches of Oats with Real Chocolate Clusters.

With a plethora of Honey Bunches of Oats variations, I am wondering when it is going to stop popping out new flavors. Right now, there is Honey Bunches of Oats Honey Roasted, Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds, Honey Bunches of Oats with Real Strawberries, Honey Bunches of Oats with Cinnamon Clusters, Honey Bunches of Oats with Real Peaches, Honey Bunches of Oats with Real Bananas, Honey Bunches of Oats with Vanilla Clusters and of course, Honey Bunches of Oats with Real Chocolate Clusters.

You know what? Maybe Honey Bunches of Oats is a polygamist and part of the Fundamentalist Crunchy Cereal Church and it lives with all of its Honey Bunches of Oats wives in a secluded ranch in the middle of Texas. Oh, the inbreeding could lead to some fucked up offspring, like Honey Bunches of Oats with Bacon, Honey Bunches of Oats with Fluoride or Honey Bunches of Oats with Honey Bunches of Oats.

Anyway, I am exciting about Honey Bunches of Oats with Real Chocolate Clusters because it means we are one step closer to having Little Chocolate Donuts on our breakfast table. Fortunately, this cereal comes with real semi-sweet chocolate (with cocoa butter) and not that “chocolatey” bullshit, which looks good on the outside, but do a little digging and you’ll have a bitter taste in your mouth. Unless a bitter taste in your mouth is something you are into and willing to pay extra for.

Like I wrote in the previous paragraph, this cereal has semi-sweet chocolate, which makes sense because having sweet chocolate would be retarded in a cereal that supposed to be healthy. Unfortunately, the semi-sweet chocolate clusters gives the cereal a really weak chocolate flavor and I was hoping that Barney Rubble would give me some his stolen Cocoa Pebbles to mix with this cereal.

Despite its weak chocolate flavor, I have to say that it is one of my favorite Honey Bunches of Oats variations. It has got the whole grain goodness for the adult in me, the chocolate goodness for the kid in me, and it allows me to buy a chocolate cereal that doesn’t make me look like a pathetic bachelor, puerile adult, or possible pedophile.

(Nutrition Facts – 3/4 cup – 120 calories, 2 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 1 gram of monounsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 150 milligrams of sodium, 65 milligrams of potassium, 25 grams of carbs, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 7 grams of sugar, 16 grams of other carbs, 2 grams of protein, a whole lot of vitamins and minerals, and 1 step closer to getting mini Hershey’s Kisses into a cereal.)

Item: Honey Bunches of Oats with Real Chocolate Clusters
Price: $4.00 (on sale – 14.5 ounces)
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Real chocolate in it. Clusters are crunchy. Honey Bunches of Oats. One step closer to having Little Chocolate Donuts. Vitamins and minerals.
Cons: Chocolate didn’t stand out. My excessive use of “Honey Bunches of Oats” in this review (to kill some time, count the number of times I used it). Honey Bunches of Oats with Fluoride. Chocolatey bullshit.