"grape-nuts" news and stories

I know that I should be eating organically grown cereal from a small Mom and Pop producer, or better yet, making the cereal myself at home, or best, growing the damn oats myself in a container garden on my patio, but Grape-nuts Trail Mix Crunch was on sale. Besides, I am such a sucker for something that screams "New!"

Now here's the thing, I have never had Grape-nuts in any of its original formats: grape nuts (what the hell are grape nuts, by the way?), flakes, or their saucy little sister, the Os, so I have nothing against which to compare other than my own cereal experience.

The cereal is very very crunchy, and has what I suspect are grape-nuts, as well as those things that look like tiny broken noodles - bran sticks. Perfect for me since I am trying to regulate my digestive system. There are supposed to be raisins and almonds, but unless every single one of them have sunk to the bottom of the box (I'm not there yet), there aren't too many in the cereal. That's okay. I don't like raisins. In milk, the cereal absorbs the milk, but yet still stays crunchy enough to very lightly grate the roof of my mouth (kind of like Cap'n Crunch).

I liked it for the most part, but the one thing that sort of threw me off was how sweet it was. It was very very sweet and turned my heart-healthy nonfat milk into a pancreas-pounding sugar-shake. I always thought something like Grape-nuts was supposed to be healthy. It does say on the box that it's got whole grains and it's low in fat, which is great to keep my heart in shape as I run around the track 10 times on a sugar high.

I am a crunch addict. I much prefer crispy tacos to soft. Quickly-cooked veggies to overdone. I even like my pasta so al dente that the toothsome bite is still...toothsome. I think this is why one of my favorite breakfast cereals is the no frills, no hype, no-prize-in-the-box-havin', old stand-by: Grape-Nuts.

Neither grape nor nut, Grape-Nuts are clusters of whole wheat and malted barley so rock-hard they could easily be used to provide traction for your tires during an ice storm. According to the Kraft website, Grape-Nuts are so named because its inventor, Charles William Post, said that "grape sugar was formed during the baking process (huh?) and described the cereal as having a nutty flavor." No matter what it's called, I love the "danger factor" involved in eating Grape-Nuts—with every bite I wonder if I am going to crack a tooth.

Some people like to heat it up and eat it like oatmeal but not me. That takes all the fun out of it. I like it cold, with a splash of milk, and sometimes, depending on my mood, a little sugar. Yep, forget the healthy, soggy fruit, gimme some sugar instead. I also like Grape-Nuts spinkled over Yoplait cherry or strawberry yogurt. It has to be Yoplait for this even though I much prefer other kinds of yogurt for regular eating. Crunch, crunch, crunch! "What's that you say? Sorry, can't hear you, I'm eating Grape-Nuts!" [photo credit: Matthew Klein]