Hello. Oh man, raise your hand if you had a hard time getting back into the swing of things last week. Yep. After overdosing on Free Family Eats and general holiday Eggnogging, I just didn’t get around to turning the blog back on. But here it is, and here’s the first review of the new year: Cheerios Snack Mix.

If you don’t believe that the “healthy breakfast and snack” market is insanely popular right now just take a look at the recent archives of the food sent in for review. It’s pretty much all cereal, health bars or healthy snacks. I guess there’s nothing wrong with going for the “turn over a new leaf” crowd.

I go back quite a long ways with my friend Cheerios - I guess their advertising got me back in the 70s. I also remember lots of parents making the homemade “Chex Mix” (not the kind you can buy pre-packaged nowadays). I’m trying to remember if the one my parents made had Cheerios in it. I think it did. I also believe it featured worcestershire sauce in it?

Anyhow, I was sent this new Cheerios Snack Mix in the Cheddar flavor the other day. First off, I want to say that I wish I was sent the “Original” flavor. Not that I don’t dig cheesy artificial goodness, but I usually like to try the basic flavor of a snack before kicking it up a notch with the cheese.

Still, this snack seemed promising. They tout it as a “balanced” snack because of the Cheerios, and like most snack manufacturers are sure to say it’s Baked and not Fried. I’m glad, because Fried Cheerios does not sound like a delicacy.

There’s 6 different kinds of snack pieces in the mix: standard multigrain Cheerios cereal, Wheat Chex, Corn Chex, triangular Cheese Crackers, “Bread Twists”, and Twist Pretzels. I’ll go through each of them in reverse order, but first let’s talk about the Cheddar powder: it tastes just like Doritos. Yep, that’s pretty much it - you’ve tasted one artificial cheese powder, you’ve pretty much got them all. Well, actually it reminded me more of the artificial cheese powder packet from Kraft Macaroni. But you know what I’m talking about.

I’m not against the taste of it, but I already thought Cheerios ‘n Cheez was going to be strange. The taste of the multigrain Cheerios with cheese powder is a little too weird for me. I think it’ll be an individual taste thing.

The mini twist pretzels in the mix might have fared the best out of the bunch - because of their smooth surface they didn’t get completely covered with cheese powder. Same goes with the “Bread Twists” which are basically mini crackers. These aren’t as smooth but they still didn’t pick up too much cheese flavor. The ironic thing is, I think I’d actually enjoy more of the cheese flavor on these twists.

One other note about the bread twists is that they’re very scarce - I found only one in a half plate of the mix that I poured out. Similar with the cheese cracker triangles. To get a good photo that had all of them, I had to hunt around in the bag for pieces. The cheese crackers are kinda bland - I was picturing them tasting like Cheez-its or something but they don’t have a strong inner cheese taste like Cheez-its. They taste more neutral like the bread twists.

Both of the Chex mix pieces had a lot of cheese powder flavor on them. I think it may be because their lattice like nature traps a lot of it. Also, I noticed some pieces were so salty with powder that they were impossible to eat alone. I wondered if maybe I was going about reviewing it the wrong way by eating the mix piece by piece. So I poured a whole bunch into my mouth. That was much tastier as the cheesier pieces tended to balance out the bland ones.

But neither method of eating the mix left me pleased overall with the taste of the Cheerios. I just couldn’t get into it, and that’s a problem because Cheerios are the main ingredient. Perhaps the “Original” flavor is more suitable with Cheerios - I didn’t get to try it so I can’t comment. Cheerios just have a very distinct oatsy quality that I thought were out of place in the cheese flavored mix. The rest of the snack pieces were OK though.

In fact, eating this snack made me feel like making up a batch of homemade Chex mix. Which leads me to the final point. At $2.59 for an 8 ounce bag, it’s probably much cheaper eats to make your own Chex mix at home, whether or not you like Cheerios in it. And / or cheese powder goodness.

Price: $2.59 for 8oz bag
Found At: Sent in for Review
Cheap Eats Score: 5/10