Fruity cereal runs the gamut from freeze-dried pieces of fruit mixed in with flaky grains to the artificially flavored rainbow-colored cereal that turns milk the colors of the rainbow. We didn’t discriminate and included the full spectrum in our ranking of 11 fruity cereals. While we found some pretty delicious and nostalgic options, the Rainbow Krispies is one fruit cereal you should avoid.
We based our ranking mainly on the taste of each cereal, but texture was also important. What we thought were going to be fruit-flavored Rice Krispies were flat, brightly colored disks that didn’t offer any of the fun snaps and crackles we hoped for. A disappointing visual and auditory first impression only got worse after we tasted Rainbow Krispies. An artificial fruit flavor is to be expected with this type of cereal, but the intensity of artificial fruit mixed with an overpowering sweet and sour flavor was what earned Rainbow Krispies the worst ranking. This cereal tastes like hard, crunchy candy. And the sourness is off-putting, especially when combined with milk; it was so sour, in fact, that we were afraid it’d curdle the milk. Natural fruit does have some acidity to it, but it’s a far cry from sour candy. Even if you like sour fruit candy, it’s hardly what most of us would want for breakfast. Plus, there are many better sour candies out there.
More disappointed reviews for Rainbow Krispies
Reddit threads were as scathing as we were in their reviews of Rainbow Krispies. One Redditor said, “I expected a flavor close to Fruit Loops or Fruity Pebbles but…instead I got full blown Flintstones vitamins.” While Flintstone’s Vitamins are chewable, the fake sweet and sour candy taste mixed with the chemical aftertaste of a vitamin is probably something you’re not going to want to eat by the spoonful, and especially mixed into milk. To that effect, another Reddit thread said that the Rainbow Krispies “left a slight ‘medicine’ aftertaste in the milk.” The shape and texture of the Rainbow Krispies was also a source of woe from a Redditor who said, “There’s little rock hard bits in every other bite…I feel like I’m about to chip a tooth.” Many Redditors were hoping the Rainbow Krispies were a revival of the discontinued but beloved Fruity Marshmallow Krispies, featuring fruit-flavored marshmallows mixed into the crackly conventional Rice Krispies. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Rainbow Krispies wouldn’t even taste good if you turned them into Rice Krispies treats.
Just like many of the Redditors, we also liked both Fruit Loops and Fruity Pebbles, ranking them in our top five fruity cereal options. In fact, both of these cereals would be a better swap for Rice Krispies in a Rice Krispies treat than Rainbow Krispies. If you want a sugary Rice Krispies cereal, we ranked Cocoa Krispies as one of our favorite chocolate cereal brands.
