The next time you dive into a bowl of crispy Fruity Pebbles, take a moment to inspect what you’re actually tasting. It’s not really like a mouthful of individual fruits, is it? Thankfully it doesn’t taste like actual pebbles either; but every spoonful of Fruity Pebbles has the same mélange of vaguely fruity but not-quite-fruit flavor. That’s why it may come as a surprise that each individual color within Fruity Pebbles cereal is in fact a different flavor.
The distinction is subtle, but if you eat your cereal one flake at a time with tweezers, you can taste the difference between the brighter citrus notes of the yellows, greens, and oranges, and the sweeter berry flavorings of the reds, blues, and purples. All together they make the uniquely zippy Fruity Pebbles taste that people everywhere remember from time spent with the cereal and Saturday morning cartoons.
Froot Loops have a similar flavor to Fruity Pebbles, but if you pick through the separately colored rings, you’ll find they all taste exactly the same. They’re fruity-ish, but it’s hard to pin down which fruit exactly. That’s “natural” flavoring for you, a broad and potentially misleading term that can legally actually contain artificial ingredients.
A look back at two popular fruity cereals
Despite the different approaches to a breakfast fruit salad homage, both cereals have a similar history of using bright colors and fruity flavoring to revitalize previously failing cereal brands. With the Flintstones, Fruity Pebbles were the first food product built around a character license as opposed to borrowing a cartoon for a pre-existing brand. The new Pebbles cereal repurposed production of the less popular Sugar Rice Krinkles, and thankfully had Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble replace the old cereal’s nightmarish clown mascot.
Froot Loops’ history started as OK Cereal, a failed Cheerios knockoff. When the crunchy O’s were made “frooty,” Toucan Sam replaced former mascots Yogi Bear and Big Otis (a Scottish strongman), and though his design has been tweaked many times over the years, the bird mascot has remained.
When it comes to choosing your favorite between the two, it likely has little to do with whether your palate can distinguish between individually colored cereal pieces, and more to do with the real base flavor beneath the bright hues. Froot Loops are made from corn, wheat, and oats, making for a crunchier cereal with a nutty sweet undertone that supports the tangy fruit. Fruity Pebbles are made from rice, giving it a more neutral base flavor, and a crispier mouthfeel. Both lend themselves to excellent cereal milk, which is ridiculously easy to make.
