Friday, 12 July 2013

Chocolate Crisp Weetabix Minis: Proof that Darwinism is Applicable to Breakfast Cereals

I do not consider breakfast cereals to be a simple foodstuff.  Think about the time you spend on each aisle of the supermarket.  Fruit and veg takes no time at all; meat (for those that eat it) is more often than not a snatch and grab for the cheapest, and usually most oppressed, slice of animal flesh; dairy is a no brainer and booze is generally straightforward.  These are 4 of the 5 key sections of my weekly groceries, but their sum is dwarfed by the fifth corner of the pentagon: breakfast cereals.  We’d be lying if we said we had never spent entire Saturday afternoons in the “Cereals” section of Tesco, salivating, sweating, crying and nervously vomiting.  So much choice, so many possibilities and combinations, but there’s only so much room in the kitchen cupboards.  We can’t just eat cereal (unless we’re in heaven).  Even if the bible states thus, and I’m pretty sure it does, we can’t bank on heaven having unlimited supplies of cereal any more than we can be certain of its existence.  You’ve got to have faith, I suppose. 

I remember last time I was buying I blacked out for about five minutes, and soiled myself (piss and shit), trying to decide what type of Dorset Cereal to utilise as a base for the Kellogg’s Crunch Nut I had already committed to.  Always choose your bowl base first, people (mueslis, granolas, shredded wheat, etc). 

The fervent undertaking of evolving their products is what causes the big cereal companies to lead people like myself, and probably a lot of you, to an early grave via stress induced illnesses and/or strokes.  For all the times the have missed the board entirely (Orange Chocolate Shreddies?  Strawberry Grahams?) occasionally they will hit the bullseye – or triple twenty if this is a darts metaphor; I think I was going for archery or target shooting.  From evolving something as simple as Weetabix, the identically named company have found something that this writer wholly believes in.  They have won the steeple chase(?), or battled for a point at Bayern Munich.  What? 

Sarcastically: Who’d have thought making your product smaller and loading it with chocolate chips would improve it so extraordinarily?

Taste:

CC Weetabix Minis taste great big love thank you.  The chocolate chips have that cheap, powdery feel about them, but I’m no chocolate connoisseur and I like that taste in my breakfast cereal.  It’s not like Coco Monkey covers his Pops in gourmet Belgian chocolate FFS. 

8/10

Milk Taste: 

You don’t get a powerful taste seeping into the milk, but a robust milkiness works perfectly with the cereal.  This is one of these cereals which benefits from fresh milk.  Get your milk right when eating these.  In fact, always buy fresh milk when buying CC Weetabix Minis.    

8/10

Texture:

If CC Weetabix Minis were Ryan Giggs, texture would be their ability as a footballer and/or sleeping with their brother’s wife and still being adored nationwide.  I feel this is the strongest part of this cereal.  They don’t go soggy within a minute like their full sized ancestors, placing them at a respectable 4 on the DCSI.  I believe they are subject to the Cereal Killer Coating Hypothesis also, there is some sort of sugary layer going on there, but it is subtle.

10/10

Packaging:

The dark brown allows them to be quickly identified as the chocolate chip variety (fruit and nut is sort of berry purple, strawberry is red).  I like how the different carieties are the same, other than the colour indicator.  The archetypal milk splashing over a bowl image is boring, but it gets me every time.

Chocolate Crisp Weetabix Minis


7/10

Relevence of Mascot: N/A – points assigned to packaging

Potential: 

My favourite thing about CC Weetabix Minis is that you can eat them dry as though a real life biscuit, not merely a “bix”.  I regularly enjoy mine with an after work coffee.  They do get dry after a while, but satisfyingly blunten the edge of your post work hunger. 

7/10

Overall: 

A respectable score for one of my favourite lab experiment cereals.  This summer, if you Weetabix, Weetabix Mini (with chocolate chips).


8/10  

Thursday, 7 February 2013

Just Right - Boring (or some shit)

Tuesday Afternoon
 
“Hey Max, how should we market the new Kellogs stuff?” Trevor enquired to his colleague, across their small South London office.
“I dunno man, have you tried that shit?  It’s ok, I guess.”  Max came out of his dreamland, where he thinks about Football Manager tactics, rather than do actual work.
“Yeah, it’s only ok.  Fuck dude, they should just stick some kind of dried fruit in there.”
“Totally.”
(45 seconds pass)
“What kind of fruit did you have in mind, Trev?  Everyone is doing that whole raisin, sultana thing – by the way, what the fuck’s the difference between a raisin and a sultana?”
“No-one knows, dude.”  Trevor replied.
(30 seconds pass)
“Yeah, so that whole raisin thing: it’s pretty whack, I guess.”  Max continued “What other dried fruits are there?”
“You can dry most fruits, I think.  I’ll tell you, I was at this Moroccan place over in Tooting and they had those date things, you know, from Indiana Jones.  Yeah, so they just put that shit in their curries.  What about little bits of dates?”
“Yeah man, whatever.  I don’t fucking care.”
 
Trevor sends an e-mail to the factory, requesting that they “put some dried dates in there, or some shit.”
 
Maybe Nazis are trying to poison us?  Maybe Just Right was Adolf's plan all along. 
 
 
Thursday Morning
 
“Hey Max, we got the prototype of that shit with the bits of dates in it from the HQ.” Trevor was holding the box under his right arm as he arrived at the office.
“Huh, oh yeah.  Shit, I forgot about that shit.  Let’s try some.”
Max pours two bowls of the Kellogs prototype, while Trevor roles a custom biffter. 
Max brings the bowls over to Trevor, as the latter sparks up.  “Let’s do this shit.”
(320 seconds later)
“I dunno, Max.  This whole dried fruit thing doesn’t really work.  It’s just a bit arbitrary, I guess.”
“Yeah man, did your bits of dates just fall to the bottom of the bowl?” enquired Max.
“Yeah, the flakes are too small to support their weight.  The whole thing doesn’t really work.  What do you think, man?”
“We could still sell this shit.  I mean, it’s only alright, but…”
“Yeah bro, it’s just alright.  Hey, we should call it that: Just Alright.  Haha, the suits would love that!”
“Yeah, Trev.  I’m kind of bored, let’s wrap this shit up.  I think they want  something by tomorrow, and I can’t be assed sending it back.  Let’s see.  We could just pretend it’s, like, health food and shit?”
“I’ll tell you what, Max: this shit isn’t good, but it’s not really bad.  I mean, I don’t hate it.”
“Yeah, man.  Like you said, it’s just alright.  What if we called it Just Right?  It makes it sound healthy, or some shit.”
“I’m down with that, man.  To be honest, I’m jonesing for some motherfucking Wotsits.  Let’s draft this shit up later and send it off.  We can put it on a green box, or some shit.”
“Cool.”  Max picked up his jacket.  “Should we leave those date things in?”
“Yeah, man.  Who fucking cares?”
 
…and so Just Right was born.  A boring cereal born from a lazily conceived idea.  It is just random flakes, with an arbitrarily selected dry fruit bunged in alongside it.  The problem is, it is just alright; I don’t hate this cereal, and occasionally I buy it.  Never do I know why.  Let’s see if I can decipher the source of its powers. 
 
"Mum, can you get some Just Right when you go to Tesco?" - said no-one ever.
Taste:
It doesn’t taste bad. It has an assured sweetness, while not being coated in sugar. When you get a nice bit of date, it’s ok. I just don’t know about the dates. They don’t really compliment anything, and they just sink to the bottom of the bowl so you’re left with about 18 bits of date and not much else at the end of the bowl. You rarely get the date pieces on your spoon. It’s like you’ve just enjoyed a bowl of cereal and now you want to enjoy some dates.
6.5/10
Milk Flavour:
Nothing happening here. It just tastes like milk, and milk is alright. My fave is green milk, but I am partial to blue milk in coffee and on Crunchy Nut.
5/10
Texture:
They are somewhere between a 2 and a 4, highlighting a weakness in my coveted DCSI. The flakes reach an agreeable, palatable softness by the end of the bowl – in keeping with a 4, or even a 5 – but the date pieces are guileless in their texture, they don’t change for no animal’s milk. Also, as my kitchen doesn’t have a heater or radiator in it, through winter the date pieces grow very hard with the cold, particularly when you come to them first thing in the morning, after a cold, lonely night in my kitchen. This can be dangerous if not prudently anticipated.
6/10
Packaging:
A fresh green background; with an explosive swirl of the product, escaping a contrasting red bowl. Nice colours. The cereal flake size is not what you expect at first from the hyperbolically depicted flakes on the box, but I quite like the small flakes of Just Right. The boxes, like many other cereals, are just too small for my intake. I’ll generally empty a box in ~3-4 bowls.
7/10
Relevance of Mascot:
N/A. I will mark this category out of the overall and factor the overall score up.
Potential:
Why not make tray bakes from just right? They also go well with generic sweet cereals like Frosties or Ricicles. Not to be had alongside chocolate cereals.
7/10
Overall:
You see, it’s just a type cereal! I still haven’t really uncovered why I occasionally by Just Right. It is a conundrum I will be embalmed or incinerated with (I’ve not decided how I want my corpse to be disposed of). I frequently hurt my teeth on cold bits of date, and am never excited about eating this stuff. It just ends up in my shopping trolley every 4 months or so. Strange.
6.5/10

Friday, 23 November 2012

Lion Bar Cereal - The Lion Preserves its Pride

The Lion Bar is a chocolate bar that I’m sure you are all familiar with.  A medley of wafer, caramel and biscuit, with the gaps filled in by chocolate.  It was previously a product of Rowntrees, and used to be good, until Nestlé bought it and made it shitty and cheap tasting.  I’m not a standard bearer of the Rowntrees Army or anything, I actually like Nestlé products (although I’m sure they’re evil because they give poor people AIDS, or don’t pay their taxes, or something), I just remember a time when the Lion Bar was a powerhouse in the UK confectionary market.  The drop in the chocolate bar’s reputation came about after Nestlé bought it over.  That is all I am saying. 
No wonder it has taken me this long to finally pick up a box of Lion Bar Cereal then.  A once potent nemesis of candy bar stalwarts such as the Aero or the Double Decker – although it was never up there in popularity with your Snickers and Mars bars – trying to get its name and label back out there through the breakfast cereal market.  I’d like to say this has happened before, but I honestly cannot think of any other sweeties that have become breakfast cereals.  Can anyone help a cereal-brother out?  I digress.  So.  This perhaps seemed a bit desperate to me.  Moreover, because almost every type of breakfast cereal that works has already entered the market and habitually these new, wacky concepts are thoroughly shit (strawberry grahams, anyone?).  Tony the Tiger said, in his key-note speech at last year’s cereal AGM: “When desperation mantles a falling brand, they feel the need to innovate and elaborate; always looking forward, blinkered to what they already have and short-sighted to what lays in their future.  Indeed, the single greatest commodity known to man is the ability to stay calm and patient.  Why would one move forward into the dark crypts of uncertainty, when they already reside in paradise?  Of course, this is Man’s greatest weakness: the need to develop and grow no matter how big you have become.  This is more popularly known as greed.  This too is why Frosties is as successful a brand as it is: I am a tiger and will not be affixed by the greed that befalls mankind.”  Somewhat cryptic, I know, but I once felt the Lion Bar Lion could take heed of his feline contemporary’s words.  It is why, whenever people see Lion Bar cereal on the shelves, they ask themselves: “Why, Nestlé?  Why?”    As it turns out, I am glad I took a chance on them.
I forgot to set up a link in the preamble to include a picture, so here is a picture of the box.  A picture that inconventiantly reveals that it is actually called Lion Cereals and not Lion Bar Cereal, highlighting my laziness in that I could not be arsed going back and changing the name in my article, but conversely showing off my impressive ability to avoid mistakes when writing as I proof read nothing.  PROFESSIONALISM.
Taste

"Multigrain" (as in, wedon'treallyknowwhatgrain) bites; one part chocolate flavoured, one part caramel flavoured.  Its the caramel part that distinguish this cereal.  The two flavours compliment each other very well.  They don't recreate the taste of a Lion Bar, but I don't think they really aim to.  A finely concocted je ne sais pas.  Very sweet (which is good in a breakfast cereal in my eyes). 

8.5/10


Milk Flavour

This segment is becoming somewhat one dimensional.  I tend to favour cereals that yield a chocolatey milk, and indeed chocolate cereals in general, but this has a strong caramel note to it that adds something to the chocolatey loveliness.  

8/10

Texture

They score 4 on the DCSI, as a cereal of this nature should.  A fine crunchiness throughout, give this cereal extra points.  They are excellent as a snack, sans milk, also.  Nice crispy little biscuits.  Good texture.

9/10

Packaging

Brown and unappealing.  The lion's head makes tham stand out, but generally a fairly dour looking box.  The lion seems a bit out of place somehow.  Where the fuck is his body actually?  The more I look at that picture (above) the more it sort of freaks me out.  What a weird looking lion.  Again, a bit too small for my liking also.

3/10

Relevance of Mascot

A no brainer, it may seem, but what do chocolate and caramel have in common with a lion?  I guess lions are kind of caramel in colour, and their main is darker, kind of like the contrast between chocolate and caramel.  

7/10

Potential

The taste of a caramel doesn't go terribly well with most things, believe it or not.  I mixed it with some Golden Grahams at the end of the box (there wasn't enough left for a full bowl of cereal) and it really didn't work.  You can eat them on their own however, which is a bonus.

5/10.

Overall

A very pleasant surprise.  I was not expecting to like this cereal as much as I did, but it really works.  They've not tried to do anything too wacky and innovative and stuck to what works, and it really has.  Poor packaging lets it down, but still a good score overall.  

8.5/10






Tuesday, 20 November 2012

To the Latent Coco Shreddies Thieves of Planet Earth

Anyone who knows me well, or have at any point woken me from a deep slumber, will be well versed with the terror that I go through every night in my sleep.  My night terrors can manifest themselves in various ways, be it acts of violence, incontinence or dehydrating night sweats.  Imagine my horror last night when I was roused by a horrifying dream of cereal robbery, and not just any old cereal; my favourite cereal ever. 

Coco Shreddies. 

I went to sleep last night, already fantasizing about my morning bowl – which surely led to such a horrific dream – and willing myself to get to sleep sooner in order to wake up to my favourite cereal (sort of like going to sleep on Christmas Eve, but way more exciting).  Anyway, the nightmare included a hooded figure breaking into my flat and raiding my kitchen.  I could smell the wretched sweat emanating from the vile bandit as they greedily rifled through my various foodstuffs - in search of my dear Coco Shreddies - knocking aside bags of pasta and various boxes of inferior cereals.  Finally, they got their hands on the desired box, which I will admit they must love as much as I.  As the robber gawked at the front of the box, voraciously licking their lips, I tumbled backwards over a box of unreturned video tapes, alerting them to my presence.  The last thing I remember before waking was the robber slowly looking up, exposing their true identity as Linda Kozlowski, co-star of 80s picture: Crocodile Dundee. 

The dream was quite horrific and after I abruptly awoke I immediately rushed through to my kitchen, admittedly hesitant from the fear that she was conspiring with Crocodile Dundee co-star – and real life husband – Paul Hogan, who may have planted traps to slow me down.  Finding my kitchen empty, I checked my cupboard anyway, and there they were: my Coco Shreddies.

The ordeal was somewhat overwhelming, which leads me to the point of this article.  I have written a poem that I plan to pin to my pantry door to ward off any would be cereal thieves.  It is called To the Latent Coco Shreddies Thieves of Planet Earth (be they 80s movies tars or other wise).  I hope you enjoy it.


Woe betide the one who would take
My Coco Shreddies before the fast I break.
Who’d steal away, from behind my back
My daybreak ritual; my morning snack

I have some money, so take it first.
I have some wine, it could quench your thirst?
But if I wake sans wheat and malt,
My desperation would be all your fault.

So you will be the one to decide
If the Shreddies Thieves you will preside.
What band of scallywags would raid and steal,
From my pantry shelves, my cereal. 

To the would be raider:
I tell you, I’ll punch
The teeth from your mouth
If you steal my munch
They will fall to the ground
In a perfect bunch
‘Cause Shreddies keep hunger
Locked up ‘til lunch

Monday, 19 November 2012

Dallas' Cereal Structural Index

I keep making promises that I can’t keep.  Here is the content I said I’d put up two days ago.  Some more food (breakfast cereal, obvs) for thought. 

Over the coming months I will try and be more quantitative with my blogging.  While verbal descriptions are sufficient for most, I like to categorise things my number (I like to organise my sock drawer from 1-5, from left to right, 5 being wank socks and 1 being my favourite socks), which is how the DCSI was conceived.  I feel it may be incomplete, and that there may be grey areas within the categories, so please let me know if there are.  I welcome any suggestions. 

So, put simply: the DCSI is a descriptive index for categorising cereal textures.  Too often have I bought a granola or “muesli” that has been too hard for my liking, or a new brand of cereal that turns soft and mushy in under 3.5 minutes of milk contact.  It is a fairly rudimentary index, but I feel it will be useful all the same.  I can picture readers sitting down to their bowl of breakfast cereal and thinking “I reckon this is a 5”, much like I do these days. 
 
I had created an pretty table on excel, that was colour coded and everything, but I can't work out a way to put it up on here in a format that is visible (I can't enter it as a picture) therefore, I will simply list the categories in as organised a manner as I can manage in absence of a table.  Categories are numbered 1-7 and hold the following upshots:
 
1. Unyielding, remains hard until end of bowl.  Example: granola
 
2. Partly softens but contains unyielding ingredients.  Example: Dorset Cereal
 
3. Stay reasonably hard/crunchy but loses some structural integrity.  Example: Jordan's Country Crisp (The Supercilious Cereal).
 
4. Become soft but generally retain a hard core or considerable toughness.  Example: Golden Nuggets (Fools gold?) ***Level 4 also contains level 5s that are subject to the Cereal Killer Coating Hypothesis. 
 
5. Crunchy/tough at the beginning of bowl; soggy by the end.  Eat at normal pace.  Example: Shreddies
 
6. Becomes soft quickly.  Eat with haste.  Example: Weetabix. 
 
7. Breakfast cereals served hot and soggy.  Example: hot Weetabix/Porridge
 
So there we have it: DCSI.  I hope you find this a useful tool as you begin to realise the importance of texture on a breakfast cereal experience, and I hope to usefully utilise it in my future reviews (there are some on the way, I promise). 

Tuesday, 6 November 2012

The Cereal Killer Coating Hypothesis

I would like to introduce this hypothesis as a precursor to my upcoming Dallas’ Cereal Structural Index (hereon known as DCSI).  A simple hypothesis that one would utilise to explain the key structural differences between normal cereals and there coated alternatives.  For instance: Corn Flakes and Frosties, Shreddies and Coco/Frosted/Honey Shreddies, Rice Krispies and Ricicles.  You get the idea.

The hypothesis states that:

A cereal that is coated in sugar, chocolate – or otherwise – will retain its crunchiness and/or structural integrity longer than its uncoated counterpart.

I feel the finest breakfast cereals available are a coated twist on and old classic, and this is often because of the consequential effect of the coating on the cereal’s texture.  If you don’t believe me, pour yourself two bowls of cereal; one of plain Shreddies and one of Coco Shreddies.  Add equal amounts of milk, submerging the cereal, and leave for 5 minutes.  When you come back to them you will find a bowl of nigh on mush in the plain Shreddies bowl and a nicely softened, but still intact, bowl of Coco Shreddies.  This is also why I get upset when people say things like: “Hey, Dallas: why not just buy plain Shreddies and add your own sugar, instead of buying the more expensive Frosted Shreddies?”  Are you wrong in the head, mate?  It’s not the same thing, and it is all down to the Cereal Killer Coating Hypothesis. 

This idea will come into its own when I cover the DCSI in my next article.  Thanks for reading and I hope you find this helpful. 

Monday, 13 August 2012

Froot Loops? More like... Foot Loops


First off, I would like to apologise to my peeps for starting a blog, posting thrice, and then not doing anything for ~6 weeks.  I can only offer my sincerest apologies, and I hope that you have managed to select the best breakfast cereal you possibly can.  You see, I have been really busy at work, and when I’m not at work I’ve been terribly busy doing stuff that isn’t work stuff (like going on dates with real girls with boobs, playing Football Manager and reading Game of Thrones… I was on holiday last week…  the Olympic Games were on too…). 

None of the above is interesting.

I have become paranoid about the quality of my article titles, and I’ll admit that’s not the best title for an article.  It’s innate, juvenile qualities may be endearing in a “randomlol” kind of way, but that’s really not what I’m going for.  Anyway, enough bollocks about my life away from the bowl.  Onwards and upwards (and stuff).

Froot Loops – not “Fruit” Loops – is a cereal that I have wanted to try for a long time.  I have always known they exist, but did not know one can actually buy them in supermarkets over here.  Therefore, I undoubtedly would not claim to be an expert on their ins and out.  I do have a few thoughts I’d like to share with you, but I'll get to that later. 

Let me paint the picture on how I came across them first.  I regularly shop at Sainsbury’s because – believe it or not – I have a job that allows me to never go to ASDA.  There’s something about their white and sterile green logo that has always put me off.  It makes me think of the smell of TCP, getting injections at the dentist and Michael Owen acting.  I just can’t enjoy food that I’ve bought there.  So picture the scene when I rock up to Sainsbury’s on a Sunday night, only to find it has closed, and I have NO CEREAL OR MILK FOR MY MONDAY MORNING BREAKFAST.  My palms become sweaty, my unwavering Sunday terror is turned on its head and I don’t know what to do.  I realised most of the nearby supermarkets and shops would also be closed at 20:15 on a Sunday.  Then I remember ASDA is open for 24 hours a day, for all the poor people, or something.  Now I have something of a conundrum: risk facing my Monday morning with a breakfast of toast, or defuse my perception of ASDA as some kind of giant methadone clinic (because of the logo).  It was truly a no-brainer. 

Michael Owen acting.

So I arrived at ASDA at around 20:30, to find a bustling hub of activity.  I realise I must be quick as the whole ordeal had fairly taken it out of me, so I enter the giant warehouse-type shop and head straight for the cereal aisle; I would get milk afterwards.   I have to be fast.  There are literally people everywhere.  Some of them are wearing their pyjamas.  I just need my cereal. 

Visualize my surprise when I finally find the aisle – nay, aisle and a half – of beautifully coloured cereal boxes.  This had to be twice the selection of Sainsbury’s.  They stocked all sorts of great stuff that you don’t see everywhere: Lion Bar Cereal (?!?), every type of Coco Pops derivative, Ricicles (which you honestly don’t see that often anymore) and then I saw them.  Froot Loops.  I noticed that they stock Fruit Loops, or rather: “Froot Loops”.  I become more confused.  Was this real?  I thought they were only sold in the United States?  Maybe I should just get some Bran Flakes and be gone.  Someone might notice me.  I’m locked in a stare down with the bird like mascot.  Is it a pelican, or a parrot.  Maybe just a made up type of bird?  How was he connected to it all?  How did I end up in ASDA? 

The cereal aisle at ASDA.  Or the Pearly Gates.  I confuse the two. 

In the end I went with a 350g box of Ricicles, a 450g bag of regular Alpen, some ASDA brand crunchy nut (for another article I’m working on) and of course, the previously fabled Fruit Loops.
I arrive back at my flat.  My flatmate is still there.  Should I tell him about the Froot Loops.  What if he becomes suspicious of me?  I literally don’t know what is real anymore.  I can’t remember if I’ve already had dinner.  I decide to wash my face and the back of my neck while staring at myself in the mirror and asking: “Why?” over and over.   

I decided to tuck straight into a bowl as soon as I got home, anxious to try them, and excited about writing a review on them.  I was seriously unimpressed.  Here’s my take.

Taste

I was excited by the prospect of a fruity cereal that doesn’t have actual bits of fruit in it.  They taste vaguely like fruit when you have them dry, but once you munch down on a bowl with milk, I didn't detect any kind of fruitiness.  They also have that "multigrain" tag, which really means "wedon'treallyknowwhatgrain."  Overall, a very plain taste.

2/10

Milk Flavour

Nothing.  I can't work with this.  A fruity shake, of sorts?  Not even.  Does nothing for the overall experience, unless you really like plain milk.  The taste of milk was probably the best thing about the whole experience, but I cannot credit it for that.

2/10

Texture

Nothing to write home about.  Retain their crunchiness quite well, but I'd prefer them a bit soggier once the milk is added.

4/10

Packaging


Eye catching.


A striking red box peppered with the vibrant colours of the loops.  Toucan Sam (so he's a toucan!) looks like a pretty cool kind of guy and adds a heap more colour.  Pretty nice, attention grabbing box.

8/10

Relevance of Mascot

I've looked into the mysterious bird mascot that was staring at me in ASDA and discovered that he is a Toucan called Toucan Sam.  His wikipedia page claims that he "exhibits the ability to smell out Froot Loops at great distances" which I though was hilariously eloquent.  His slogan used to be "Follow my nose!  It always knows!".  He was once voiced by the one and only Paul Frees, who we all know as the narrator from 1973's The Manchurian Candidate.

Trivia aside, I don't like this mascot.  Toucans have no direct connection to fruit, and as far as I know, birds don't even have a sense of smell.  It's all lies.

1/10

Potential

None culinary, some decorative I guess.  You could put them on a cake, but not as an edible decoration.  They would add nothing colour wise.

1/10

Overall

Sorry if this seems harsh; I know plenty of people who like Froot Loops, but I can honestly think of no redeemable qualities, aside from the lovely packaging (which isn't even that important).  I can't get on board with Froot Loops, they're not even fruity.  So aye, they taste like feet...  Foot Loops.  (lol)

2/10