Snack You Silly

Fun Fact: General Mills briefly made a Monopoly cereal that was essentially Cinnamon Toast Crunch with Monopoly-themed marshmallows
Recommended T.O.E.: All-nighter into Saturday morning cartoons

“Not any more like toast than any other cereal.’”

I really don’t know why this cereal is called Cinnamon Toast Crunch. It’s not any more like toast than any other cereal. I suppose it’s roughly the same shape, but it’s not like there aren’t countless other square cereals that don’t in any way affiliate themselves with toast. It doesn’t taste like cinnamon either - not real cinnamon, at least. It’s supposed to taste like the winds of Sri Lanka, not IHOP French toast like it does now. And it’s advertised as cinnamon sugar, but I suspect the accepted three-to-one sugar-to-cinnamon ratio has been swayed even further in sugar’s favor, too.

If you don’t like sugary cereal, this one really isn’t for you. It’s not even just sweet, like, say, Smacks or Froot Loops, either; it’s like eating spoonfuls of sugar. The coating leaves your mouth feeling grainy and your teeth permanently damaged. Perfect for Saturday morning cartoons, but never for dinner.

Like all hybrid wheat/rice cereals though, the texture of the cereal itself is fantastic. Just the right amount of jaw pressure is needed for it to give, making true mouthfuls a joy. It also holds up to milk for an above-average amount of time, but once it gets soggy it’s a throw-away, making it good for smaller, snack-sized bowls, but not for a meal. If you’re at a convenience store browsing the single-serving cereal boxes, you can seriously consider Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

One of my favorite parts of eating cereal is drinking the left-over milk at the end. I couldn’t take more than one gulp of the brown goop in my bowl after eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch, though. The cinnamon sugar washes off of the “toast” way too easily, leaving the cold soup Pixy Stix-sweet, and too thick to wash down properly.

I feel like I’ve fallen into General Mills’ non-trap, whose commercials for Cinnamon Toast Crunch have adults asking children why they like it. I loved this stuff as a kid, but now I can barely stand it. Obviously they want me to like it, but the prophecy from the ads has come true. If you have pleasant memories of it from when you were growing up, you’d probably be best served holding onto them, and ignoring any nostalgia-induced urges to buy a box.

-Zvi Finklestein

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 at 1:49 pm and is filed under 1.5 Stars, Cereal, Zvi Finklestein. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.