Except for some crunchy granola scattered over my bowl of yogurt, I’m not the world’s biggest cereal eater.
But Me & Goji just might make me one.
The New Hampshire custom, artisanal cereal company lets you design your own blend of cereal. We’re not talking Rice Krispies mixed with Special K and Cocoa Puffs. Instead, you can choose from more than 60 all-natural ingredients, including 5-grain muesli, “samurai wheat” bite-sized shredded wheat cubes, barley flakes, acai powder, goji berries, chia seeds, pine nuts, dried strawberries and sesame seeds.
You can name your cereal and upload a photo to decorate the resealable, recyclable, heavy-duty tube it comes in.
The company was started a couple years ago by two active, sporty guys — Alexander Renzi and Adam Sirois — who graduated from Northwestern University, where they played soccer together and longed for healthier food options to recharge with.
Recently, they offered me a chance to design my own cereal on the house.
I blended a mix of the “flax and flaked” (a blend of corn flakes, amaranth seeds, flax seeds, and sesame seeds) with granola, whole almonds, walnuts, sesame seeds and mulberries. And I named it, “Food Gal’s Favorite.” But of course!
I love this cereal. It is crunchy, nutty, full of varied textures and a far cry from the almost candy-like cereals on store shelves. It tastes fresh, healthful and delightful.
According to the nutritional info on the back of the tube, my cereal mix weighs in at 161 calories per half cup (a lot less than most granolas I eat), with 7.5g total fat, 75mg potassium, 4.8g protein, 3.5g sugar, and 9 percent of the daily requirement of iron.
My mix would have cost $13.90, plus $3.99 for shipping and 99 cents for the tube, which contains about 10 cups of cereal.
There’s also a handy “recipe ID” number printed on the back of the tube, so if I want to re-order the same blend, I just enter that number on the Web site and it’s automatically added to my cart for check-out.
Contest: I’m thrilled to be able to give one lucky Food Gal reader a chance to try their own custom cereal blend for free.
Entries, limited to those in the continental United States, will be accepted through midnight PST March 26. Winner will be announced March 28.
How to win?
Tell me your favorite cereal when you were a kid — and why. Best answer wins the chance to make their own Me & Goji cereal blend.
Here’s my own answer:
“Although I don’t eat much cereal now, I had a serious addiction to Froot Loops as a child. First of all, how could I resist all those colors in one bowl? The loops were girly, looking for all the world like beads. In fact, I remember even making a necklace out of them in grade school. Second, who can resist Toucan Sam? The fact that I can still remember his name shows the frightening amount of Froot Loops I must have consumed back then.”
Winner of the Previous Contest: In last week’s Food Gal contest, I asked you to tell me a time when coffee never tasted so good. The winner will receive a sizzling red Kaldi single-beverage system by the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (a $149 value).
I was floored by all the wonderful entries, which made it so hard to pick just one winner. But in the end, I had to go with this particular one.
Congrats to:
Julie, who wrote, “I am single and live alone and so for my birthday last year I asked for someone to please serve me a steaming hot cup of coffee in bed. My (married) neighbor Matt kindly obliged and at the agreed upon hour he delivered my cup of coffee with a big smile and a ‘Happy Birthday.’ The best cup of coffee I’d had in a long time.”
Tomorrow: Fresh-Baked Cookies Made with My Custom Cereal Mix