Cereal is a staple in my home. Everyone in the family enjoy it at breakfast time, as an afternoon snack or even a late night treat. I have given my kids cereal to take to school with them as a snack with their lunch. Our pantry is filled with a variety of cereals, from the super healthy kind to the not-good-for-you-but-oh-so-good kind (aka “Kiddie Cereal”). My husband would eat Count Chocula every day if it was possible. I happen to love Alphabits with Marshmallows. We also eat plenty of cereal with whole grains and fiber too.
My husband is big on brands. He doesn’t mind going for generic brands from time to time. Certain things he won’t even entertain the thought of going with something generic. Some cereals we’ll go for the store brand rather then the $$$ brand name.
One section of cereals we always seemed to skip over. It’s found at the end of the cereal aisle. It’s those cereals that come in bags. To be honest with you I never gave them a thought. I just figured they were they really low-quality cereals. And why are they in a bag? Why not in a box like other cereals?
I learned that the brand of cereal that comes in bags is called Malt-O-Meal. I have heard of the brand name before but I never knew what it was. When I hear the word “malt” I think Malted Milkballs or Malt Shakes. I don’t think cereal.
Malt-O-Meal sent me a few samples of their cereals to try out. They sent me Frosted Mini Spooners, Blueberry Mini Spooners, Tootie Fruities and Honey & Oat Blenders. The Mini Spooners were the Malt-O-Meal version of Mini Wheats, the Tootie Fruities are their version of Fruit Loops and I’m assuming the Honey & Oat Blenders are a version of Honey Bunches of Oats.
If anyone is super picky about foods it’s my husband. I figured he would be the best person to help me with the test to see just how close to the “real” thing the Malt-O-Meal versions were. The first cereal we tried was the Tootie Fruities. I didn’t tell my husband what they were and I didn’t show him the bag. I just poured some in a bowl in the kitchen so he didn’t see me. Then I took the bowl to him and asked him to try it. Of course he was a bit curious as to why I was asking him to try cereal. He thought maybe I needed to know if it was stale or not. He took a spoonful and said it tasted fine. I said “What tastes fine?” and he said “The Fruit Loops”. There… he said it… Fruit Loops. He thought that was what he was eating. He didn’t know they were Tootie Fruities. They taste THAT MUCH like the other brand. When I showed him the bag he was pleasantly surprised. He even commented on how he usually walks past the bagged cereals and he never stopped to look at them. He didn’t know what kind of varieties they had.
My kids didn’t notice a difference either. They were just curious as to why the cereal was in a bag and not in a box. As far as they were concerned it was the other brands cereal. They couldn’t tell a difference either.
I am a fan of Mini Wheats and I am honest with you when I say the Malt-O-Meal varieties (Mini Spooners) taste like the “real deal”. If you put the cereals side by side and asked me to do a taste test I wouldn’t be able to pick which brand that easily. They are very similar. The Blueberry Mini Spooners are especially nice. I love the real Blueberry flavor in each bite. The Mini Spooners are also very filling.
I equally enjoyed the Honey and Oat Blenders. Especially with a sliced up banana. YUMMY!!!
Why doesn’t Malt-O-Meal put their cereals in boxes. I have to admit the bags were a bit odd to stack in the pantry. Thankfully they have ziploc closures so you don’t have to worry about them opening up or getting stale.
What I’ve noticed about the Malt-O-Meal cereals is that they appear to have MORE then the other brands do. There is nothing worst then opening up a package to find that 1/4 or 1/3 of it is just empty space. The Malt-O-Meal cereal bags appear to have MORE cereal in them then their boxed brands. Malt-O-Meal is also LESS EXPENSIVE then the boxed brands too!
Malt-O-Meal does not use boxes for the simple reason that boxes are harmful to the environment. They are part of a movement called Bag the Box. Bag the Box wants companies to do away with unnecessary packaging and replace them with more enviromentally friendly options.
Bag the Box has a website (www.BagtheBox.com). There I learned some startling facts about what goes into the making of the boxes our foods come in.
Did you know…
- By not manufacturing boxes, 1.1 trillion BTU of energy was saved, enough to light ten 100-watt bulbs for 36,000 years or 36,000 100-watt bulbs for ten years.
- It takes 345 million pounds of paperboard to make a one year supply of cereal boxes. That’s the weight of 734 747 jumbo jets.
- Each year, the United States produces 2.3 billion cereal boxes. That is enough to build not one, but almost 3 great pyramids.
- It takes 2.4 trillion BTU of energy to power the plants that make the boxes—enough to power 26,000 homes.
- If the boxes travel 100 miles to get to the cereal plant, this consumes 1400 tons of fuel—the equivalent of 46 tanker trucks full of fuel.
These are just a few of the startling facts that I learned on the Bag the Box website. Let’s not mention all the trees that have to be chopped down to make the paper used to make the boxes our foot and other products come in.
WOW! It’s really eye opening. When I look in my pantry and see nothing but boxes it makes me feel guilty about what my purchases are doing to our environment.
When you think about it not having a box does make perfect sense. When you buy cereal what is inside? A bag. What is in the bag? The cereal. So what purpose does the box serve, except for a place to advertise the company. The box has no purpose whatsoever. It is just a waste. Not to mention that bag inside the box is not always easy to close up which results in stale cereal. I know from experience. My kids don’t always fold up the inside bag well which leaves us with stale cereal. That is a waste of money as well as food.
Now that I am aware of just how unnecessary boxes are and what a waste of packing it can be I am going to look for products that use less packaging, even if it means not purchasing our favorite brands. Maybe the bigger brands will take notice of the Bag the Box revolution and make the necessary changes to their packaging too. In the mean time we’re going to try out other Malt-O-Meal flavors and see about switching to purchasing only Malt-O-Meal instead of the big brands that come in boxes.
For more information about Malt-O-Meal visit www.MaltoMeal.com. You can also find them on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/MaltOMealFanPage and on Twitter, http://twitter.com/MaltOMealCereal.
To learn more about the Bag the Box campaign visit www.BagtheBox.com.
Kimberly
*I received free product samples in order to do this review. There was no compensation. The opinions expressed are my own.
