What Are/Were Your Favorite Breakfast Cereals?

This post topic really draws part inspiration from Jerry Seinfeld. He's an admitted cereal lover and also enjoys pondering the tiny, everyday trivialities and wonder of life to the "important stuff". I think we might have just a slight common bond somewhere...

I remember Jerry stating that while he loves countless breakfast cereals, he finds Kellogg's Corn Flakes to be as close as it gets to the "perfect cereal" in his mind. It's the one he returns to most often (as far as I know...).

So in true "Seinfeld-fashion" I couldn't resist asking the question here.

Now I know firsthand (from some other posts) that some of you don't even eat/notice breakfast cereals. Fair enough. Yet it's hard to deny their existence/consumption. A whole aisle is traditionally reserved for the countless boxes of everything from All-Bran to stuff that is just atoms of grain with 99% sugar!

At any rate, I suspect at least some of us have a cereal or two or three that we routinely purchase or return to as a steady favorite over the years. In some cases, childhood memories (like many things) instill a favorite that we still hold high regard for today.

I find it hard to say I have a single unrivaled favorite. Much like Jerry, I tend to enjoy the variety of many favorites and will alternate boxes inside the cereal cabinet on a revolving door basis. What makes it a variable answer in picking a favorite is that I have preferred cereals within each TYPE of breakfast cereal. Like a lot of things, it can simply depend on the mood you're in. I'd say a good overview of my cereal tastes are as follows...

The Healthy cereals I generally like best -

Wheaties
Nabisco Shredded Wheat
Cheerios
(Less Frequently but on ocassion) Grape Nuts

Note: I will indeed add some LIGHT sugar to the above. Healthy refers to how the cereals exist relative to the other cereals but for more "palate-ability" I don't leave them 100% "healthy"...

The Semi-Healthy cereals I like best -

Frosted Mini Wheats
Rice Krispies (I will lightly sugar)
Rice/Corn Chex (I will lightly sugar)
Corn Flakes (I will lightly sugar)
Just Bunches (From the Honey Bunches & Oats line but these are just the more granola-like bunches without the distracting off-flavor oats...)

The slightly healthy but largely sugar loaded cereals I like best -

Cocoa Pebbles
Corn Pops
Nostalgic Choice: The Monster Cereals (Count Chocula, Franken Berry and Boo Berry). These aren't always available to find anymore. They seem to be released in limited novelty status around Halloween although I have seen all three available for "special order" in the groceries section on Amazon etc...

The Warm Breakfast Cereals I like -

Cocoa Wheats slightly over Cream Of Wheat though both hold a classic taste for me in the "warm cereal" department.

There are also some famous, well-loved breakfast cereals that most enjoy which I can never fully get into for some reason. These include:

Raisin Bran - I know the problem here - I'm not a fan of raisins! If you won't eat them plain, you likely won't want them in a cereal either. The flakes just taste like Wheaties to me which is the GOOD aspect. But the sweet, gummy raisins ruin this classic for me. It indeed is a classic, but just isn't my kind of cereal.

Frosted Flakes - I'm a bit puzzled why I never fully enjoyed this standard. It's just sugared flakes - it should be hard to go too wrong. Yet, somehow, that white sugaring on the flakes tastes TOO strong or sweet for me. And it kinda leaves an odd sugary aftertaste in your mouth. Of course, ALL sugar cereals do to some extent but Frosted Flakes always seemed to have a particularly odd/strong one to me. No offense to Tony the Tiger. He's Grrreeeaatt! But the cereal just isn't that special to me.

Lucky Charms - Hmmm... I don't know what's wrong with this one either but I just know it kind of turns me off. Something about the sugar aspect of the marshmallows mingling with those cheerios-like oats just seems to clash unattractively for some reason. I just find other "marshmallow-based" cereals to be more sinful (in a better way)...

I'm sure there may be a few that are slipping my mind at the moment (from all the above categories) but I think that should cover my general taste in standard breakfast cereals fairly well.

This is fun! I feel 14 years old!

Feel free to share your own favorites if you wish (then or now). The milk is on the table...

Jeff

This is a fun topic, and I share your thoughts on a lot of them... especially Raisin Bran and Frosted Flakes--for the same reasons you cited.

Hands down, my favorite cereal is Peanut Butter Captain Crunch. I still buy it occasionally, but it doesn't last long. I make a big bowl of it with lots of milk, then when the cereal runs out, I just keep pouring in more until I have no more milk left. Probably not the best of morning habits! (And I'm usually hungry about an hour later after all that!)

Life is probably my second favorite. It's relatively healthy and I just think it has great balance of flavor and texture. (And Mikey likes it. Groan....)

These days, more often than traditional cereal with milk, I have non-fat vanilla yogurt with Grape Nuts and blueberries. It's really good. Sometimes I substitute the Grape Nuts with another cereal I recently discovered called Nature's Path Peanut Butter Granola. It's also good just plain, in some milk.

Len has exclusively become a Quaker Oatmeal Squares kinda guy. (Brown Sugar Flavor.) Apparently he is not alone, because half the time when I go to purchase it, the space is empty where it usually is. I'm not really a fan of them though.

It is rare that I ever eat cereal...not that I don't like it, I just don't eat it. I have found one at Costco called Pecan Crunch. I like the numbers and it is very tasty. I've never tried all the kiddie cereals out there. Shredded Wheat, Blueberry Morning, and Strawberry Fields comes to mind as some I have bought and tasted. Gene usually ends up eating the ones I buy. Steel cut oats are a staple for me and I make it in one of those Lil Dipper hot pots. It is ready in about 30 minutes and It makes enough for three servings for me. I add golden raisins, a tad of real maple syrup and some low fat milk. I only make this every two months or so. I prefer in season fruit, with Fage Yogurt, and a glass of my favorite juice.

[Jenise]

Here comes poopdeck!

I have never eaten a bowl of cereal in my life.

But I have bought countless boxes for hubby, and have been known to pour a handful into a little baggie to munch on as a dry snack on my way to somewhere if it's going to be awhile before lunch. For that experience, Wheat Chex has no equal. They're not sweet, and they have a lot of grain flavor.

I typically eat cereal for breakfast on weekdays. Current favorite is Cheerios. If I am feeling particularly health-conscious, I might cut in some Fiber One with the Cheerios but usually not.

I like Raisin Bran a lot too.....for the same reasons others dislike it. I LIKE those gummy raisins in with the crunchy flakes.

I do not put sugar on my cereal, nor do I buy sugared cereals. That is not a path I wish to travel, seeing only bad endings and no way to turn back. However, my mom often has Frosted Mini Wheats on hand and I like those a lot too. Fortunately, she is 280 miles away so I can't run over there when a craving strikes.

I also like Multigrain Chex, but its been a while since I had those.

I've eaten many boxes of Smart Start, but got burned out on that.

My current favorite is Raisin Bran Extra, followed by Raisin Bran Crunch, Honey Nut Cheerios, and a few Trader Joe's granola cereals. Hubby's favorite is Kellogg's Frosted Mini-Wheats.

I also have Cascadian Farm Oats & Honey granola for my vanilla yogurt, and rice, wheat and corn chex for party mix.

This is a fun topic, and I share your thoughts on a lot of them... especially Raisin Bran and Frosted Flakes--for the same reasons you cited.

Hands down, my favorite cereal is Peanut Butter Captain Crunch. I still buy it occasionally, but it doesn't last long. I make a big bowl of it with lots of milk, then when the cereal runs out, I just keep pouring in more until I have no more milk left. Probably not the best of morning habits! (And I'm usually hungry about an hour later after all that!)

Life is probably my second favorite. It's relatively healthy and I just think it has great balance of flavor and texture. (And Mikey likes it. Groan....)

Yes, Life is a classic that I forgot. I used to enjoy that one fairly frequently. The only aspect I recall NOT liking what that it had a tendency to get extremely mushy after it soaked in the milk a few minutes. Which could lead to another fascinating side-topic with cereals, the "resistance to quick mushiness" factor.

When I think of many of my favorite cereals, one common thread frequently is cereals that have a firm, mush-resistant flake to them (at least for near term purposes). I think this is one of the true positives of the granola-like cereals (Grape Nuts, Just Bunches, etc). They stay hard in texture and structure for a reasonably long time (considering they're soaking in milk). On the other hand, I find a cereal like Corn Flakes to rapidly dissolve to mush. It's a great cereal. I like it. But its structure just isn't long-lasting in my experience. A fascinating little subject though...

I have never tried that Peanut Butter Cap N Crunch but may have to seek out a box. It sounds tempting.

Jeff

Yes, Frosted Mini-Wheats is one of those classics that seems very timeless to many. It might be my top pick if I HAD to just name one.

I think it's the fact it is a healthy cereal yet balanced with that frosted coating that makes it so ideal to me. I like that I don't have to physically sugar it and yet the frosted layer is "just right" - it adds some welcomed sweetness but isn't so much as to make the cereal "unhealthy".

The only bad dilemma with Frosted Mini-Wheats is that you can get those stray boxes where they seemed to SKIP coating the frosting! So its more just a box of regular Shredded Wheat.

I also find you have to race against time fairly quickly when having a bowl of Mini-Wheats or else that frosted coating gets washed away and inevitably you're left with uncoated, mushy shredded wheat.

But all these frivolous quirks aside, it is perhaps my very favorite cereal...

Jeff

Well let's see. Back when I was a kid, I was a fan of the entire universe of sugar bomb cereals that were available. Cocoa Puffs, Captain Crunch, Sugar Pops, Sugar Smacks, and plain ol' spoonfuls of sugar were all good by me. My favorite was probably Quisp, though. (I never saw the appeal of Quake.) By college, it was Frosted Mini Wheats and granola.

Nowadays, I don't often buy cereal. My wife keeps Grape Nuts and Golean Crunch in the house as she has a mixed bowl of those with blueberries every morning. I like both of those a lot. Like Carrie, I'll put Grape Nuts in with yogurt.

My problem with eating bowls of cereal is that they just don't stay with me. I can eat a pretty good-sized bowl of Golean and Grape Nuts and be hungry again within an hour. I figure I don't such extra calories so I tend to stay away. Once in a while, though, I like a bowl as a late-night snack.

Wow Jenise!! That doesn't surprise me though!

Growing up we weren't allowed any sugar except when we stayed with our grandparents in Cape Cod during the summer. So we ate Cheerios, Raisin Bran, Wheaties, Corn Flakes, Grape Nuts, Shredded Wheat, and Rice Krispies at home. During the summer, my grandparents would let us pick put the most sugary cereals ever...we usually got Boo-berries, Apple Jacks, Fruit Loops, and Cocoa Krispies.

I very rarely eat cereal now...if I do, it's usually as a snack in the afternoon or for dinner, as I really don't like sweet foods for breakfast. When I have cereal, my favorite is Basic 4. If I could eat any cereal and not feel guilty, I would probably eat Honey Smacks.

Hubby loves cereal and usually eats Frosted Mini Wheats or Frosted Flakes. He loved Wheetabix (sp?) and Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes in the UK, but says they taste different here, so I don't buy them. Says they are much more crunchy over there and hold up to the milk better.

My DD really dislikes cereal, and my DS is allergic to most, although he does like Kix or Rice Krispies with rice milk on occasions.

I rarely eat cereals for breakfast either to be honest. I'm the type who doesn't view them as a "meal" or centerpiece of breakfast so much as just a good "snack" or an easy way to get a daily dose of some grains and B vitamins.

Come to think of it, breakfast foods are some of my favorite and yet, ridiculously, I rarely eat them FOR breakfast! Its just because my stomach isn't a "morning stomach". It's as simple as that. But come lunch or dinner, I'd be the first in line for an omelette or some luscious French toast! Then we can't forget the cereal as a midnight snack.

I'm one of those people who is even sad when the restaurants stop serving breakfast at 10 or 11. In some cases, I'd order a breakfast meal for lunch or dinner if I could! Why cut off at 10 or 11? Why offer all that good food at 8 or 9am when nobody's stomach is up quite yet?

Jeff

I don't like cereal much, so I hardly ever eat it. I do eat muesli sometimes, stirred into yoghurt, but the other stuff that comes in cardboard boxes from Kelloggs and the like ... no. The Francophile, on the other hand, can't start the day without his bowl of cornflakes.

Cold Cereal:

Alternate between Golden Crisp and Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds; usually with whole milk, but 1/2&1/2 and light cream are also nice.


Hot Cereal:

Oatmeal with maple syrup and cream.

[David M. Bueker]

Current favorite is the Kashi Cinnamon Harvest

I was a big fan of Kix, and of course Frosted Flakes, but got pretty much burned out on both. PB Cap'n Crunch is sinfully good/bad.

This is a fun topic, and I share your thoughts on a lot of them... especially Raisin Bran and Frosted Flakes--for the same reasons you cited.

Hands down, my favorite cereal is Peanut Butter Captain Crunch. I still buy it occasionally, but it doesn't last long. I make a big bowl of it with lots of milk, then when the cereal runs out, I just keep pouring in more until I have no more milk left. Probably not the best of morning habits! (And I'm usually hungry about an hour later after all that!)

Life is probably my second favorite. It's relatively healthy and I just think it has great balance of flavor and texture. (And Mikey likes it. Groan....)

These days, more often than traditional cereal with milk, I have non-fat vanilla yogurt with Grape Nuts and blueberries. It's really good. Sometimes I substitute the Grape Nuts with another cereal I recently discovered called Nature's Path Peanut Butter Granola. It's also good just plain, in some milk.

Len has exclusively become a Quaker Oatmeal Squares kinda guy. (Brown Sugar Flavor.) Apparently he is not alone, because half the time when I go to purchase it, the space is empty where it usually is. I'm not really a fan of them though.

I'm so old I remember when shampoo came in glass bottles and Life cereal was shaped like little sopapillas. When they changed Life's shape to a Wheat Chex-type grid, it lost its appeal to me. The texture changed and it got soggy rather quickly.

Way back, before I was born, in the early days of WWII, my Mom worked at the "Original" Nabisco Shredded Wheat plant in Niagara Falls (it used to say that on the box). She knew the guy who invented Triscuits, which also originated there. We ate a lot of shredded wheat when growing up. Sometimes my Mom would put two of the biscuits in a bowl, pour boiling water over them, let them soak for a few seconds until soft, pour off the hot water and top with butter and salt. Nice, warm breakfast. I believe the original shredded wheat plant closed shortly after it was bought by Post. In the early 1970s I had a friend who worked there. He told me about a card game that had been going on in one of the break rooms continuously since 1963. I've always wondered if that was some kind of record.
EDIT: Just found this link: http://www.lavasurfer.com/cereal-shreddedwheat-history.html

Way back, before I was born, in the early days of WWII, my Mom worked at the "Original" Nabisco Shredded Wheat plant in Niagara Falls (it used to say that on the box). She knew the guy who invented Triscuits, which also originated there. We ate a lot of shredded wheat when growing up. Sometimes my Mom would put two of the biscuits in a bowl, pour boiling water over them, let them soak for a few seconds until soft, pour off the hot water and top with butter and salt. Nice, warm breakfast. I believe the original shredded wheat plant closed shortly after it was bought by Post. In the early 1970s I had a friend who worked there. He told me about a card game that had been going on in one of the break rooms continuously since 1963. I've always wondered if that was some kind of record.
EDIT: Just found this link: http://www.lavasurfer.com/cereal-shreddedwheat-history.html

That's a neat story. I always remember the Shredded Wheat box mentioning it being the Niagra Falls cereal and always wondered what the specific connection was. I wonder if it still makes mention of it. I haven't bought a box of it in awhile but I'll have to remember to take a look next time I'm in the aisles. I know when I was growing up in the 80's it still mentioned it on the box. I seem to even recall a blue-white logo of the falls on the box as well but perhaps I'm just imagining that part?

There must be something to the Shredded Wheat brick shape that allows it to be improvised as a "food" because we would do similar things with it. The big one at our house was to butter the biscuits (I believe...) and then fry them a few minutes on the pancake griddle. We would then put maple syrup over them at eat them like they were waffles or something. It wasn't a frequent snack but we did make them once in a great while.

Looking back, I don't think it was the most delicious thing ever. Today, I'm more content to just put them in milk and eat them "normally" with some sugar. But it does stand as a unique food memory and one that would've never occured to me naturally. Who knew you could do such things with cereal!

Jeff

[Jenise]

Wow Jenise!! That doesn't surprise me though!

Well, understand, nothing snobby going on here, and sugarless cereals of the kind you had were available in our home growing up. It's just tht I despise milk, always have.

Wow Jenise!! That doesn't surprise me though!

Well, understand, nothing snobby going on here, and sugarless cereals of the kind you had were available in our home growing up. It's just tht I despise milk, always have.

Oh Jenise, you didn't come off as snobby at all...I just know about your white liquid or congealed food aversion and figured that's why you never ate it that way... !

Unlike Jenise (and like Mike H) I eat cold cereal as breakfast during the week*. With the caveat that I have almost no sweet tooth (more of a sour tooth, actually), here are the cereals that I eat:

Wheat Chex
Bran Chex
Barbara's Shredded Oats
Barbara's Puffins

I have no objection to Shredded Wheat, Grape Nuts and Raisin Bran and often will eat one of them when traveling.

*For those interested in losing weight, research has shown that consumption of high fiber breakfasts and lunches reduces hunger in the evening and overall caloric consumption. Just sayin'...

Mark Lipton

Hot: McCann's Steel Cut Oats
Cold: All I've eaten in the past 12-15 yrs is Grape Nuts. Maybe 4-6x per month
Historical favorites were Raisin Bran and Frosted Flakes.

Oh, and Freakies!



We are the Freakies.
We are the Freakies.
This is our Freakies tree.
We never miss a meal,
'cause we love our cereal.

Fifth grade was so long ago.

Whatever happened to steaming hot cream of wheat cereal? Childhood memories rule!!!!

Best
Rogov

Whatever happened to steaming hot cream of wheat cereal? Childhood memories rule!!!!

Best
Rogov

That's what I had as a kid. My Mother did not let us have cold cereal. She thought it would rot our teeth and make us behave like wild animals.

Whatever happened to steaming hot cream of wheat cereal? Childhood memories rule!!!!

Best
Rogov

It's still here (in the States). Definitely good stuff! My slight preference was always Cocoa Wheats between those two top classics but Cream of Wheat was always a treat as well. To me they were always two sides of a same coin - kinda the hot cereal equivalent of deciding between vanilla or chocolate for that day...

Jeff