Hey — do y`all remember Crispy Critters? Oh ho ho, man. They were like Kix, kind of, but in animal shapes, and with a shiny crispy shell. Their spokesthing was an animated (I think — I kind of want to say “puppet” but that’s not right) animal who looked and sounded like Jimmy Durante. And he sang a song that went something like this:
They’re Cris-py Critters, with lots of cah-runch.
A low-sugar cereal — you`ll like `em a bunch.
There’s more to it, but I can’t remember. All I know is, this cereal was TASTY. If it had been around into my teenage years I probably wouldn’t have developed such food issues. Without it, I segued onto Raisin Nut Bran, which should have been called Sugar Fat Bran for its nutrition condition.
And after some Googling and a spelling correction, I see you can learn much, much more about Crispy Critters than you ever wanted at x-entertainment, where I filched the image above. I think it was the alarming but cute googly-eyed puppets that sold it for me. Puppets are underrated. Don’t get me started on my crush on Alf.
Anyway, on a vaguely related note, check out this nutrition label from a bag of white Harris Teeter sesame seed buns. I didn’t get these buns for myself, so I didn’t check the label until I got home. Keep in mind these are really big, white buns.
Notice anything funny about it, nutrition fans? My first reaction was *ZOING* 100 calories for a big-ass bun?! How`d they do that? Then I check out the rest of the story. At 4 calories a gram (and not including the measly dietary fiber, which goes into carb counts but not the calorie total; the carbohydrates alone cost 140 calories. Then I notice the calories from fat aren’t right, either — it’s like the left side of the label came from a totally different food item.
If you can trust the nutrient grams on the right, these buns are about 180 calories. That’s kinda harsh if you’re having a couple of burgers and you think you’ve eaten only 200 calories of bun and you’ve really had 360 — that’s a can of Coke difference. Yowza.
It should be clear by now that I really like fiber. In my pantry I have All-Bran, Fiber One, Grape Nuts, many cans of black beans, and a container of bread crumbs I crushed myself from hi-fiber bread because no bread crumb brand I could find had adequate fiber content. Yeah. I wish I was kidding, but I`m not.
Ooh, belly rumblin`. Time for lunch.
