"life cereal" news and stories

I'm a sucker for TV commercials. I even think they should be put on TV DVDs, though I bet some people would hate that idea.

But it got me thinking about all of the great TV commercials we've had for food over the years. After the jump, eight classics. I'm not saying that these eight are the "best" (though some could be), but they're eight that I really enjoy.

Wow, this quiz over at Mental Floss sure brought back a lot of memories. Freakies Cereal!

The quiz tests your knowledge of breakfast cereals. The questions range from fairly easy (what's on top of the Quisp alien's head?) to outrageously difficult (how many holes appear in a piece of Honeycomb cereal?). But it's a blast from the past for cereal fans or people of a certain age. You'll also find out what happened to Mikey from the Life cereal ad in the 70s and which cereal is 50% sugar.

For the record, I got 12 out of 20 correct.

I was noodling around in my files and food magazines and ran across some info that I thought would make a good food trivia quiz.

Food Trivia Quiz

1. When and where did McDonald's open its first drive thru?
2. Who turned the world on to Blackened red fish?
3. Who are Tim and Nina and what are they known for?
4. In 1982 what became ET's favorite candy?
5. When was the Slurpee introduced?
6. What is Alice Waters known for?
7. Who was the first Ronald McDonald?
8. What cities recently banned the sale or use of certain food products.
9. What storm caused the devastation of one of the top food destinations in the world?
10. Where was the original home of Subway?
11. Who wrote "On Food and Cooking" the book that was the catalyst for the combining of the culinary arts and science?
12. When did the Blooming Onion first appear on a chain restaurant menu?
13. When did the Food network first start broadcasting?
14. When and where did the first Starbucks open?
15. The first dishwasher was introduced to the public in 1893. What decade did it finally catch on?
16. What was the first diet soda?
17. What was the "Space Age drink" and when was it introduced?
18. Waring invented the blender in 1937. What year was the one millionth blender sold?
19. What was the cereal Mikey likes?
20. Who wrote "Mastering the Art of French Cooking"?

Don't peek at the answers! They're after the jump.

We mentioned the growing market for yogurt and how it is being included in products from toothpaste to cereals. This week, the Wall Street Journal did a quick taste test of three of the new yogurt-coated breakfast foods: Total Vanilla Yogurt, Life Vanilla Yogurt Crunch, All-Bran Yogurt Bites. They point out that none of the cereals contained live cultures, instead relying on dried nonfat yogurt and yogurt powder to add color and flavor to the cereals. Most of the flavor came for the sugar that was added in addition to the yogurt, though, and the WSJ tasters found the Life and Total cereals to be far too sweet. The All-Bran version was the favorite, as it didn't have the overly sugary taste of the others, though the tasters commented that they could have used a few more yogurt bites.

I tasted Kellogg's Cran-Vanilla Crunch, which has cranberries and yogurt-oat clusters. It might have been a bit on the sweet side for breakfast, but I still enjoyed it. And it made a great snack or topping for plain, non-cereal yogurt.