Kids Cuisine

My family eats a lot of cereal. So much, in fact, that I don’t even dust the top of the fridge - it’s covered by a protective shield of cereal boxes. There’s just four of us, and no, we don’t eat our breakfast out of washtubs, shoveling it in with ladles. But cereal is a big part of our family’s diet. (Check out that Food Pyramid, friends. . . it’s cool to load up on whole grains.) 

We eat cereal for breakfast, I eat it frequently for a quick lunch, and sometimes, it’s even “What’s for Dinner.” (Hey, don’t judge me. The next time you’re racing between ballet class and soccer practice and it’s looking like there’s another drive-thru dinner on the horizon, try yelling, “Who wants Cereal Buffet Night?” Put out bowls, a few boxes of cereal, cut-up some bananas or throw some frozen raspberries in a serving bowl, and everyone gets to mix it up. It’s a lot healthier, and cheaper, than a drive-by fry fest.)

So, I’m always on the lookout for cereals that are good-tasting, nutritious enough for meals (snack cereals notwithstanding), made with real food components and not just a hodge-podge of chemicals, and that we can actually afford to eat as we please - nobody likes rationing on Cereal Buffet Night. Consequently, I jumped all over the chance to review the two new offerings by Mom’s Best Naturals: Honey Grahams and Toasted Cinnamon Squares.

I knew the cereals were coming, but when the box arrived on my doorstep, I didn’t recognize it at first. Although it looked about the right size for two boxes of cereal, it felt way too heavy. I am familiar with natural and organic cereals, and if you are too, you know that they boxes they come in are usually considerably smaller than those the mass-market cereals come in. But sure enough, opening the box, there were my cereals. In regular family-size boxes! Already I was impressed. 

But that would only go so far. We’d recently sampled another natural/organic cereal that ended up becoming food for landfill foragers. Trying to be something it was not, which is to say a fun-flavored health cereal, it tasted flat and weirdly stale straight from the newly opened box. So, I eyed these two analogs of popular cereals with a skeptical eye. 

I decided to draw up a mental list of criteria to judge the cereals by. First, economy. They’d done well on the box size - really well. Scanning through the press packet, I read that the boxes, which are truly “family size” at 17.5 ounces, retail for a suggested $2.29 to $3.29. That’s quite a bit cheaper than the big-brand versions, and I think it might even be cheaper than the less nutritionally discerning generic knock-offs that come in smaller boxes. Off to a good start.

But there was still the taste. The brand-name versions of these two cereals are family favorites (particularly for snacking), so this was a pretty stiff test. First, we sampled the Honey Grahams. And each of us gave a couple of thumbs up for taste, texture, and appearance. This stuff is delicious. Really, really good. In fact, one of us ventured to say that it was an improvement on the original.

The Toasted Cinnamon Squares fared just as well in our taste test. The two cereals met or exceeded our expectations, and in some ways, they were surprisingly superior to the original product. They held up better in milk, I thought. The boxes were bigger for the cost. And here’s the grab: they contain no high-fructose corn syrup, no hydrogenated oils, no artificial colors or flavors or preservatives. Reading the ingredients list is a bit like reading a recipe you could make yourself - inasmuch as you can identify all the ingredients.

Mom’s Best, it turns out, is a family-owned company that packages its cereals in boxes made from recycled paperboard. Plus, the company buys 100 percent of the electricity needed to produce its natural cereals from Windsource - that’s right, folks: wind-turbine energy is at work making these cereals. (Doesn’t knowing that make them even yummier?) Who wouldn’t love a cereal that’s good for our kids, our environment, and even gives us moms a pat on the back? According to the press materials, the brand name is a shout-out to the founder’s wife and to all moms “who teach their families about the importance of good food, as well as the value of stewardship.” 

I’m excited about Mom’s Best Naturals! I can’t wait to get to know the other eight varieties in the ready-to-eat cereal line. Who’s up for Cereal Buffet Night?