Wednesday, March 03, 2010
I don't even know if there's a cereal that's more classic than Honey Nut Cheerios. Simple as they are, they have quite a fanciful and delicious taste. It may have taken a while, but Cheerios have finally been chocolatized, which sounds like such a fun process.
Reviewed by
Mary Smith
Chocolate Cheerios
Walking through the breakfast isle a few days later to purchase a box of my own brought me back about twelve years to a time when I would refuse to eat anything but dry honey nut cheerios and maraschino cherries. (I clearly had my eating priorities straight as a six year old.) Childhood grocery store flashbacks aside, the giant brown Cheerios box with the word “NEW” written across the top was relatively easy to spot and I was home enjoying a bowl within twenty minutes.
The first thing I noticed about what I was eating was how accurately it represented the picture on the box. This is really no surprise, what with Cheerios being a pretty credible brand and all, but it’s still nice to see honest advertisement. This new flavor is made up of two players, two sides: one is light, one is dark. But really. What makes up Chocolate Cheerios is ultimately a mix between two different types of Cheerios, each with its own level of chocolate flavoring. Both are whole grain guaranteed, and when eaten simultaneously they form just the right amount chocolatey goodness without being overbearingly sweet. The darker of the two flavors looks like what I would have imagined this entire cereal to be, while the lighter one appears to be a grainier, lighter-colored brown, watered down version of the first.
By eating some pieces right out of the box, I was able to isolate the two different levels of chocolate and taste a subtle difference. While eating them with milk there is really no way to differentiate between the two, mostly because it would take entirely too much work to get a spoonful of only light pieces or only dark pieces. Something the milk option offers that the dry option does not is a leftover drink at the end. I’m not really the type to drink what my cereal leaves behind, mostly because I’m not the biggest fan of milk. Over the years, I have sacrificed being tall and strong (two things I most definitely am not) for the personal satisfaction that comes with not having to drink the liquid. My one weakness into the dairy world, however, is the occasional glass (or five) of chocolate milk. Toward the end of my first experience with these cheerios, I noticed that all of the “light” pieces had magically become about five shades lighter than when I had poured them. What once served as the flavoring for my circular shaped whole grains was now a part of the milk, which was so tasty that I actually did drink it.
The box claims that these are made with real cocoa, which I believe because they don’t exactly taste like some icky synthetic processed wannabe chocolate covered grains. In fact, I would describe the taste of Chocolate Cheerios as just the opposite. Being Colombian, I can really appreciate the use of cocoa beans in a product, and this cereal alone makes me pretty proud to be from a country that knows their cocoa. In the span of about a week, I devoured this entire box by myself. I would like to blame this on the fact that it was the only decent breakfast food in my house at the time, but the truth is that I just really like chocolate and I really like cereal, so Chocolate Cheerios and I sort of fell in love over the past six days. They contain just the right amount of new taste while sticking to the familiar cheerio texture and shape that babies, elderly people, and everyone in between have loved for years and years. They also MAY reduce the risk of heart disease and the box is 100% recycled paperboard. A good purchase all around, really.
1 comments:
May 2, 2010 4:00 PM
"Chocolate Cheerios" is misnamed. While they may be chocolate, they are not Cheerios. Cheerios are made of whole grain oats. The chocolate version (when one bothers to read the ingredients) are mostly corn. Whole grain oats appears as ingredient #5. This is nothing but deception as General Mills knows most people will think these are healthy Cheerios with chocolate added.