solarbird | more f00ds for j00

Today's USDA organic pre-made foods experiment was Kashi "Strawberry Fields" cereal. It's a rice-and-wheat flake, mostly, with freeze-dried organically-grown strawberry bits in with the mix. The cover photo is accurate as to the size of the strawberry pieces, though I think it overemphasises the number of strawberry bits per bit. Short summary: ZOMG SUGAR BOMBS. If you like very, very sweet cereals, this is for you. It's not a true sugar-cereal in that the flakes are primarily wheat, not sugar matrix, but it's as close as you'll want to get. The flakes held their crunch well, and were vaguely reminiscent of Frosted Fakes, but thicker. The freeze-dried organically-grown strawberries tasted ... like freeze-dried strawberries, with the expectable problems associated with such a thing, and as such, I thought they were kind of weird. However, they were no more weird (and arguably somewhat less weird) than similar attempts I have seen to include freeze-dried fruits in cereal and failed to be repulsive in any way. (I was, frankly, braced for potential grossness.)

An update on "Nature's Path Organic Multigrain Flakes Cereal with Raisins" (USDA organic), a cereal I tried last time; this one has grown on me. There were a lot more raisins further down in the box, which helped, and which indicates more settling than usual for cereals in my experience. Having had it a few more times, I've decided I actively like it and would be happy to have a box of it around. (Can you tell I like breakfast cereal? Mmmmmmmm cereal. ^_^ ) Also, we tried two more variations on "Nature's Path Granola Bars" (USDA organic), the Pumpkin Flax Seed and the Peanut Butter. Both were competently executed and reasonably tasty, but I liked neither nearly as much as I enjoyed the "Hemp Plus Raisons" version I tried originally. I would place both above the kind of oat bars we'd been eating previously, however.