Last fall, I thought I would never again see so many limited-time-only, pumpkin-flavored products.  Then, I went to the grocery store this week and saw most of last year’s products had returned, plus there’s a whole new batch of stuff.  Autumn has arrived my friends.

Some of my favorite non-breakfast, pumpkin-spiced new products are Pumpkin Spice Peeps, LINDOR Pumpkin Spice Truffles, Pumpkin Spice Toll House Cookies and Pumpkin Spice Almonds from both Planters and Blue Diamond.

But this is a breakfast site, so to the business at hand… What is the best pumpkin spiced breakfast cereal introduced in 2016? There were 3 introduced by major cereal companies this year.  The following are listed from my least favorite to my most favorite:

Pumpkin Spice Cheerios (General Mills)

This was my least favorite, but it’s still pretty darn good.  The pumpkin spice flavor is super noticeable, especially in the first few spoonfuls.  Of all the cereals, the seasonal flavor here feels most like it was dusted on as opposed to being part of the recipe.  The biggest problem for this cereal is that Honey Nut Cheerios and original Cheerios are so very good.  Midway through my first bowl of this cereal, my mind was drifting to those other kinds of Cheerios – which are better than this new variety.

Pumpkin Spice Life (Quaker)

When eaten dry, the pumpkin spice in this cereal sort of sneaks up you and tastes a little overpowering.  But when you have it with milk, the flavors integrate and taste terrific.  I’m a big fan of Cinnamon Life cereal and this new variety feels kind of like that cereal’s nice uncle.  He’s interesting, fun, clearly-related, but somehow you’re strangely content to only see him during holidays.  While this was my second favorite, it was the hands-down top favorite of our 2 and 1/2 year old toddler.

Pumpkin Spice Crunch Special K (Kellogg’s)

The highest praise you can give to a pumpkin spice product is to say it tastes like pumpkin pie. The previous two cereals don’t taste like pumpkin pie.  They taste like cereals that have been infused with spices associated with pumpkin pie.  This new Special K cereal actually does taste a little like pumpkin pie.  I was surprised that there’s no pumpkin puree in the ingredients.  It might have to do with the sweet clusters you get in every other spoonful.  Alone, they taste like little clumps of plain sugar. But in the context of the whole cereal, they trigger thoughts of ice cream or whipped cream – to some, the best part of eating a piece of pie.  Of the three cereals, I also found that this one kept me feeling full for the longest time.  If you only try one pumpkin spice cereal this season, this is the one to buy.

Non-Cereal Shout-Out:  BelVita Pumpkin Spice Breakfast Biscuits (Nabisco)

With a house full of pumpkin spice breakfast products, I was bound to eventually get temporarily tired of pumpkin pie spice.  It happened quickly with the Cheerios cereal and it’s happening now with the Life cereal.  But… these biscuits that I’ve been snacking on every other day for a couple weeks are still tasting new and interesting.  There’s nothing amazing about them.  They’re basically just thin holiday cookies.  It could be that I’m usually extremely snacky when I have them.  Whatever the reason, I like them and I think you might too.

Be sure to check out the last year’s Battle Of The Fall 2015 Limited Edition Cereals.

This is the year that everything became pumpkin spiced.  Here’s a partial list of grocery items that came in pumpkin spice varieties this fall: bread, ice cream, yogurt, cream cheese, coffee, coffee creamer, beer, vodka, almonds, potato chips and corn chips.

Many breakfast items also received the autumn treatment.  You could get Thomas Pumpkin Spice Bagels and English Muffins, Quaker Pumpkin Spice Oatmeal, Eggo Pumpkin Spice Waffles and Pumpkin Pie Pop-Tarts.

As for breakfast cereals, there were 3 major brand cereals introduced this year capitalizing on the flavors of fall.   Here they are listed from worst to best:

Pumpkin Puffins (Barbara’s)

Have you tasted pure pumpkin to see what it’s like before it’s sweetened and spiced for a pie?  I have and it tastes dull.  It’s a miracle that something so bland can become so marvelous.  Well, the good folks at Barbara’s have captured what pumpkin tastes like before it tastes good.  This cereal gets props for being relatively low in sugar, but that’s where the compliments end.  It’s annoyingly crunchy as milk doesn’t penetrate the pieces.  As a dry snack, it’s acceptable.  As a cereal, it’s (to quote Donald Trump) a real loser.

Pumpkin Spice Frosted Mini-Wheats (Kellogg’s)

This cereal is good because Frosted-Mini Wheats are good.  The flavor is exactly what you would expect: traditional Mini-Wheats with a healthy pinch of holiday flavor.  The new flavor is impressive in the first few spoonfuls, but midway through a bowl, the pumpkin spice aspect becomes less apparent… leaving you with the taste and texture of a cereal you already know.  This one is very sweet with the highest amount of sugar of the cereals featured here.

Apple Cinnamon Crunch Special K (Kellogg’s)

The best fall-themed breakfast cereal isn’t pumpkin flavored.  Instead of pumpkin pies and pumpkin patches, this cereal brings to mind apple pies and apple orchards on crisp autumn afternoons.  The flakes are crispy and light. Small apple cinnamon clusters make each spoonful sparkle with a flavor that’s familiar in pies and oatmeal but new and exciting in a breakfast cereal.  The milk at the bottom of the bowl takes on some of that flavor for a final slurp of cinnamon apple goodness.   Of the 3 cereals, this one has the best chance of jumping from a limited edition product to a full time offering. The next time you’re in the grocery store being pummeled by pumpkin products, look for this cereal.  It’s a winner.

Additional Reading:

Breakfast Product Reviews at MrBreakfast.com

The Cereal Project at MrBreakfast.com (Encyclopedia of over 1,500 Cereals)

I was very excited to open my mail this morning.  General Mills sent me this year’s boxes of Count Chocula, Franken Berry and Boo Berry Cereals.  The cereals themselves haven’t changed since last year, but the packaging is updated in a great way.

The cereals partnered with artists from DC Comics to give each monster a fresh look.

My favorite is Count Chocolate who is more expressive than in the past.  His huge nose and big buck teeth are less goofy and more menacing than past renditions.  The artists for that box were Terry and Rachel Dodson, a husband and wife pencil and ink team known for work on DC’s Wonder Woman and Marvel Comics’ Spider-Man.

Franken Berry has his familiar look but is a bit rougher around the edges. If you’ve never noticed his fingernails which are polished to look like individual strawberries, they’re emphasized in this illustration.  Strawberry fingernails might feminize other men, but Franken Berry makes it look tough.  The artist for this rendition was Dave Johnson who some may know for Marvel’s Captain America and DC’s Detective Batman series.

Probably the most notable artist involved, Jim Lee (X-Men, Superman and many, many more) did the illustration of Boo Berry. While cool, it was my least favorite of the three because it looked so similar to Boo Berry boxes from previous years.

The boxes I received were all signed by the artists.  Bonus!  I’m checking with a comic enthusiast friend of mine to see what they might be worth in the future.  Depending on what he says, I’ll either be having sweepstakes to give them away or I’ll be retiring in Maui – in which case, this will be my last post.

Here’s a quick look at how the monsters have changed over the years:

For more about these cereals and to see vintage boxes and commercials, check out the Monster Cereal Collection section of MrBreakfast.com which also includes Fruit Brute and Yummy Mummy.

The ad showing Del Taco’s new breakfast burrito being hauled by a forklift is pretty spot-on.  The new Grande Scrambler is heavy.  When the Del Taco drive-thru kid handed me a bag of two, I almost dropped them.  I was expecting the weight of a couple cheeseburgers, not the heaviness of a honeydew melon.

A Grande Scrambler consists of eggs, shredded Cheddar cheese, hash brown sticks, pico de gallo salsa and your choice of sausage or bacon, all wrapped in a flour tortilla.

The Sausage Grande Scrambler In Reality

The Bacon Grande Scrambler In Reality

This is no breakfast for the diet-conscience. The bacon variety has 1130 calories and the sausage variety has 1100 calories.

Of the two kinds, I much preferred the sausage burrito.  The sausage had a decent, mildly-spicy flavor that paired well with the pico de gallo salsa.  The bacon burrito was somehow too rich.  It’s not bacon, per say, but rather bacon bits.  In my burrito, the bacon bits were clumped together and it looked more like ground beef. I love bacon… but if you grind it up and serve it in its most concentrated form, it’s just too much.

At $3.49 per burrito, you get your money’s worth.  Unfortunately, that’s not such a great thing. The Grande Scrambler is so big that you might get disgusted with it before you’re done.  By the end, you start to take more notice of the drawbacks like the concentrated bacon and a slight sponginess to the sausage.  If you’re like me, you’ll also feel fat and wish you’d stopped after the first 1/3.

The best part of the Grande Scrambler is actually the pico de gallo salsa.  It tastes garden fresh and adds a brightness to the heavier flavors.

And now for the report card…

Sausage Grande Scrambler:  B

Bacon Grande Scrambler: C-

See you later.  I’m leaving now to take my big burrito butt to the gym.

Michael Phelps’s Breakfast:

• three fried-egg sandwiches
• three chocolate chip pancakes
• one five-egg omelette
• three slices of French toast
• one bowl of grits

As reported by the Daily Mail, this enormous breakfast is just part of daily diet that clocks in at 12,000 calories.  For lunch, Phelps enjoys pasta with ham and cheese sandwiches.  For dinner, pizza of course.

While Phelps takes breakfast to the extreme, it should be noted that eating a responsible breakfast everyday has been proven to help people maintain a healthy weight (National Weight Control Registry Study) and revitalize tired muscles (University of Texas Study).  Click here for a ton of other studies on the benefits of breakfast.

If you’re not about to swim 100 laps, I’d recommend that you eat just until you feel satisfied.  Or if desired, eat breakfast like Michael Phelps and we’ll see you in the Olympics of Obesity.

According to the company’s director of menu marketing and promotions, Tracy Dunn, “Jack in the Box is combining three popular breakfast choices – waffles, egg and our new country-grilled sausage – to create a distinctive, craveable sandwich that is easy to eat on the go. Our new Breakfast Waffle Sandwich is the perfect balance of sweet and savory.”

Visit jackinthebox.com for more details.

Important Update: I just tried the new Breakfast Waffle Sandwich.

Something about that promotional picture haunted me all afternoon.  I couldn’t shake the craving.  Luckily, Jack In The Box serves breakfast all day long.  Breakfast for dinner, baby!

My verdict:

It was alright.  It was a little smaller than the promo picture and placards in the store might have you believe.  I’m not a pig, but I was expecting more of a deluxe-sized sandwich, especially based on the $2.79 per sandwich price tag.

I liked it better than the McGriddle (the competing sandwich from McDonalds that uses maple “griddle cakes” for the bread).  The maple flavor in the waffle sandwich tasted more authentic.  All in all, it was decent sandwich.  Don’t let that first picture get your hopes up too high.

At the Altira Macau Hotel on the island of Taipa (near Hong Kong), they offer a breakfast on their room service menu that costs 8,888 Macanese patacas.  That’s over a thousand U.S. dollars.

The meal consists of:

• 30 grams of beluga caviar served on ice with blinis and a variety of garnishes like sour cream, chopped egg and scallions
• Granola with berry yogurt
• Your choice of a) eggs Benedict with Balik smoked salmon or b) Australian Wagyu beef sirloin with two eggs
• One bottle of Dom Pérignon (Vintage 2002)
• A basket of baked goods
• A platter of seasonal fruit
• Your choice of juice, coffee or tea

What?  No hash browns?

More Information:

Forbes.com: Try Macau’s $1,112 Breakfast