Cinnamon Toast Crunch is the Nectar of the Gods

No one would ever accuse my childhood of being a cornucopia of health food. Yes, my mom would boil up a pot of frozen mixed vegetables (yum) with every dinner, but I’d never actually eat them: I just thought of them as a garnish that I occasionally had to dig out of my nightly serving macaroni and cheese. Between the pasta, the chicken nuggets and the frozen pizzas, I had my mom trained. I was living every fat kid’s dream. But there was always one foodstuff that, try as I might, I could never get into the house because even the woman who fed me four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches a day considered it “too junky”: Cinnamon Toast Crunch.


If you grew up watching children’s programming in the 80s, you’re familiar with just how hard breakfast cereals that were in essence baked candy were pimped upon us. Cookie Crisp. Count Chocula. Fruity Pebbles. The prize in each box should have been a dose of Ritalin. It was all garbage that contributed to me being a disgusting fatbody in elementary school (which, in turn, made me become the funny kid, so…thanks?) yet, for whatever reason, the only one forbidden from my household was Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Which of course led to me devouring it every time I found it in a friend’s pantry during a sleepover. Years passed. My obsession with Cinnamon Toast Crunch eventually faded from memory as I preoccupied my mind with Metallica lyrics and acquiring pornography and tobacco products like any self-respecting teen. Then, decades later, strolling through the aisles of Costco as an adult, I stumbled upon this:

Words cannot convey how visceral my reaction was, but I probably sounded like a girl in the audience of the Beatles’ first appearance on Ed Sullivan. I purchased two boxes and sprinted out the door like I’d taken a shit in the aisle. Ten minutes later, I had a bowl filled with those little squares and their artificial cinnamon spiral and dug my spoon in, steeling myself for disappointment. There was none. Miraculous. Somehow, something beloved from my childhood didn’t disappoint the adult incarnation of myself. (To anyone who erroneously believes that everything you loved as a kid is still awesome today, try sitting through a single episode of Transformers, then realize it was only the threat of imprisonment that kept your parents from kicking you in the spine every time you hogged the family’s only tv to watch that garbage.)


So now I ask you, what was your favorite junk food as a kid? Typically, when people ask questions like this, it’s because they want to drum up comments and genuinely don’t give a shit what you reply, but I’m still a fatty at heart, so I’m looking forward to one Hell of a nostalgic foodboner. Bring it.