Junk Food Nation, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, I rarely review cereal bars, energy bars, or the like on this blog.  Why? Not because I don’t like them, or because I don’t think think they can considered junk food.  In fact, my friend over at CrazyFoodDude.com does a great job review awesome bars that are out there in the marketplace.

No, I don’t review bars because while I like them, I don’t LOVE them.  The whole concept of trying to squeeze all these nutrients, protein, sugars, carbs, vitamins, all into a single munchable bar – well, I don’t like that concept. I want my food spread out.  Cooked.  Bagged.  On a plate. In a bowl. On a plane, in a train, with a fox, in a box.  Et Cetera.  Cereal bars and protein bars make me feel like we’re one step from eating food in pill form.

I mean I get it – food on the go.  Well, how ’bout you wake up a little earlier and eat a bacon and cheese sandwich or something?  Is that 15 minutes of extra sleep really doin’ it for ya? You’d rather have that same stupid dream over and over, wake up, and eat some paste stick, instead of stuff your face full of hash browns?

Of course that’s just me – I have friends who eat and swear by bars, and it works for them.  Doesn’t work for me.  And to that end, today’s junk food: the Special K Raspberry Cheesecake Bar!

The Money Shot

To be clear, the Special K Raspberry Cheesecake Bar isn’t being marketed as junk food. I mean, Special K is that company that consistently talks about losing weight, right?  And they clearly highly emphasize the low calories count in this bars – only 90 per.  But let’s be honest…Raspberry Cheesecake?  90 calories per…but is it the size of a AAA battery? And is one serving REALLY one cereal bar, or all size in the box? Let’s be honest here.

The juxtaposition

Special K Raspberry Cheesecake Bar, shown above, has a picture of actual raspberry cheesecake right next to it.  Cheesecake is a funny thing for me – I never seek it out, but I do like it. (What’s not to like? Cream cheese and sugar, folks).  Whenever I’m out to dinner, though, it’s like I’m Jason Bourne and have no idea who am I or what I like – and I always think I HATE cheesecake.  Then someone will order it, I’ll have a bite, and remember, “Holy eff, I’m Jason Bourne….and this ‘cheese’ and ‘cake’ that is in front of me is DELICIOUS NOM NO M NOM! NOW FIND ME TREADSTONE!”

Dessert for breakfast!

Special K is calling this a dessert flavor, along with the Chocolatey Chip Cookie flavor?  I guess the cat’s out of the bag – Special K is pushing dessert bars for breakfast.  I don’t care how lazy you are…who’s eating dessert for breakfast??

All of us, apparently.   As Jim Gaffigan puts it, re: pancakes, “You can’t have cake for breakfast…you’re gonna have fried cake with syrup for breakfast!”

Ran out of things to say?

Special K Raspberry Cheesecake Bar, you aren’t inspired by dessert…you ARE Dessert.

Bill Cosby used to joke that cake for breakfast wasn’t a bad thing…it’s got eggs, milk, wheat – all the things growing children need.  I concur.

That's ....small

The Special K Raspberry Cheesecake Bar is individually wrapped and…

Cereal and sugar

…about the size of a five-stick pack of chewing gum. I’m not even joking – I could’ve bent this in half and fit the whole thing into my mouth and I would’ve been fine.  And yes, I have a big mouth. But this really is barely any food, and certainly not enough to replace my normal breakfast of four bowls of cereal.  One upside: looks like plenty of dried raspberries, so hopefully that helps.

Yogurt...or is it cheesecake?

Ah, the white coating of “cheesecake” that lies underneath.  Appealing. It’s so….molded.

Red raspberries

The taste of this Special K Raspberry Cheesecake Bar was…ok.

Texture: It’s a bunch of cereal held together by a kind of adhesive sugar substance, so it felt like a granola bar. When you bite into it, your teeth kind of sink into it softly. The sugary glue was really sickeningly sweet however, with no distinguishable flavor.

Taste: Sweet. The cereal was TOO sweet.  The “air” that puffed out as I bit was reminiscent of cheesecake – creamy, milky, and sweet. However, as soon as you crunch into the cereal a couple times, the cheesecake feeling and taste disappeared.  Instead, it felt like I was having the crust of a cheesecake slice that still had a LITTLE bit of cheesecake attached to it, with some raspberry flavor.  The dried raspberries tasted good, and I definitely got raspberry flavor – but the sweetness of the cereal REALLY overwhelmed everything.

Not my favorite.  Sorry, Special K.

Thoughts? Tell me in the comments below or hit me on Twitter @junkfoodguy or on my Facebook Page.

Sincerely, Junk Food Guy