An ode to cereal - Part II

I've been home today with a fairly impressive cold, and my sore throat and general lethargy mean that I haven't done much of interest. At all. I also seem to have lost the ability to combine multiple thoughts or ideas.

With this being the case, I thought it might be a good time to get to Part II of my cereal chronicles. In Part I, I talked about the basics.  Cereals that could be placed in the nutritious category.

In Part II, I'm focusing on a slightly different set.

Snack Cereals

These cereals rarely feature on my breakfast menu, but I like them enough to eat them as snacks on a semi-regular basis. Sometimes in a bowl, sometimes dry, and sometimes dry from a mini Tupperware container at work. (As a side note, spell check just told me to capitalise Tupperware. Clearly the company is more famous than I ever knew.)

Cheerios, Wildberry Rice O's, Special K

None of these products are nutritionally bad, by any stretch of the imagination. But they do have a certain snack-y feel about them, at least to me.

Cheerios

Interestingly, Australian Cheerios (made by Uncle Toby's and containing corn, oats, rice and wheat) are different to American Cheerios (which are made from oats only). 

American Cheerios come in a lot more flavours, which I find a little unfair. However, I do find the Australian variety fun to eat, because the different grains give the Os different colours. And if you're like me, it can be fun to select Os out based on colour. 

Because that's entirely normal, obviously.

This is a fairly sweet cereal, which can make it a nice alternative to biscuits / cookies, and it is easily transported for at-work consumption.

 Nutritionally, I'd call it average. It is high in fibre, but that's about the only claim to be made.

Orgran Wildberry Rice O's

Please excuse the lighting. Clearly the sun and I were not appropriately positioned.

In fairness to these Rice Os, which contain 59% rice flour, 12% milled yellow pea and 8% millet flour (and don't contain gluten, wheat or dairy), the nutritional profile is probably worthy of breakfast, at least if you ignore the low protein content.

In my mind, though, they're a healthier version of Cheerios, and I tend to eat them in a similar manner. 

This is one cereal I always have dry, because I find the taste changes (not for the better!) when wet or in yoghurt.

They're less entertaining than Cheerios in a colour sense (no variation!), but you do get wildberry flavour to make up for it.

Special K

I'm almost a little embarrassed to admit my enjoyment of this cereal. The advertising approach that lauds the product as a weight loss and lifestyle tool, and the variety of spin off flavours that don't always sound breakfast appropriate (the chocolate variety comes to mind...although I did enjoy trying it :P ), have, I think, given the brand a few undesirable connotations.

But, I really, really like it. There's something about the taste and texture that just seems to work.

I probably would eat this for breakfast if it had more staying power, but it tends to leave me hungry quite quickly (which is slightly odd when considering it has a higher protein content than most cereals). 

Given this, I mostly reserve it for weekends when I eat breakfast late, or for weekday snacks.

The product is 62% rice and wheat, and has slightly less sugar than Cheerios (14.5% vs. 17.8%), but less fibre.

Although I have tried all the flavour variations (or at least, all the Australian flavour variations...America and England stock considerably more!), I've settled on original as my favourite, although Special K Advantage comes in a close second.

And with that, I conclude Part II. One set left to come! Do you tend to snack on cereals? Do you have any favourites?

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