Last week I grabbed a fresh box of Reese’s Puffs out of the pantry, poured some of it into a bowl, and immediately noticed something was wrong. There was a disproportionate ratio of peanut butter flavored puffs to chocolate flavored puffs, with the chocolate puffs seeming to be a mere formality amid a sea of peanut butter flavored pieces. Ordinarily the cereal had a nice balance of chocolate and peanut butter and this kept you from feeling like you were eating predominantly Coco Puffs or Peanut Butter Captain Crunch, which I’m not a fan of. Now the peanut butter puffs just sat there announcing their presence like they’d just won a nasty, hard fought divorce settlement with chocolate.
“Look I know you don’t really like me Steve, but the truth is chocolate and I, while appearing to have a harmonious relationship, have been feuding for about five years now and it has become apparent that the only way this cereal can survive in its current state is if there’s less chocolate in each box. ”
I know I’ll end up eating the cereal, and will have to, since my mom bought one of those 20 oz family size boxes that is intended to appeal to grocery stores that like to buy shit in bulk so they can sell it at a cheaper price to parents on a budget with a minimum of six kids, and are therefore unable to buy each child a box of their preferred cereal. Everyone’s stuck eating a box of a cereal they hate until they’re too tired to care anymore. Instead longing for the day when they can announce to the world that they’re finally slain the once insurmountable box of Berry Burst Cheerios.
The color of the puffs themselves looked washed out, with jagged edges, and when I took my first bite the taste was subdued and not as sweet. I don’t want to describe it any further because I’m already bordering on a Steve Almond Candyfreak level of hyperbolic description, but that one bowl game me enough pause to wonder if I should ever eat another box of Reese’s Puffs. I slogged through an entire bowl of the stuff and none of the subsequent bites did anything to counter my original impression that the cereal had been fundamentally altered and would never be the same.
I went online and saw that general mills is making a conscious effort to reduce the sugar content of all their kids cereals so that’s probably why it tasted different to me but I just don’t understand why I hadn’t noticed it earlier. According to the article these changes went into effect in late 2009 and General Mills hopes that this measure will cause sales to increase, as the cereal is supposedly healthier with less sugar. I think they’re idiots for thinking that kids won’t slowly come to the realization their favorite cereal doesn’t taste the way they’ve come to expect. Once they’re aware of it kids aren’t going to react to this change positively and will just move on to campaigning for some cereal that hasn’t been exposed as a danger to humanity by David Zinczenko and the rest of his health army. No child whose parents can afford sugar loaded cereals should have to grow up eating a steady diet of Kirkland Signature Spiced Pecan.
Some of you may think I’m too old to be eating a cereal like Reese’s Puffs but I don’t care. If George Carlin could talk about how his Rice Krispies told him to fuck off every morning and people laughed with him instead of questioning his sanity, I think I’m entitled to talk about Reese’s Puffs.
I don’t have the omniscient “I’ve based my entire career on the assumption that people are too dumb to read and interpret nutritional labels correctly, and thus will automatically eat an entire piece of Chocolate Chip Paradise Pie without thinking unless I create a sufficent amount of paranoia in their minds before they lift the fork to their mouth” Zinczenko’s data around to verify this, but I think my breakfast cereal rotation of Frosted Flakes, Wheaties, Honey Nut Cheerios is healthy enough to compensate for my having a box of Reese’s Puffs every couple of weeks. However my dad still thinks that I don’t eat healthy enough and likes to make a quick inventory of all cereal in the house by shaking each box before definitively stating whether it’s okay to buy a new box.
“You’ve got *shakes* half a box of Chex cereal here, *shakes* three fourths of a box of Wheaties and an unopened box of Honey Bunches of Oats here. Why hasn’t it been opened?”
“I don’t really like it dad, why don’t you help eat some of this cereal if it’s such a big problem?”
My dad never eats cereal because he’s too busy trying to use up a cargo load of Eight O’ Clock Coffee bean packages given to him by my mom, all the while complaining that she’s not buying new blends fast enough, or that she’s always buying the wrong ones.
Waiting on the Bus 