I’m beginning to think that Trader Joe is nothing more than a pumpkin peddler. I have a pretty good pulse on all things pumpkin, yet every time I walk into a Trader Joe’s there are roughly 50-100 new pumpkin things scattered about the aisles. Pumpkin Joe is basically just trolling me at this point. I can’t NOT buy everything. I’m seriously considering talking to my employer and setting up a direct deposit so that my salary goes directly to Trader Joe – it would simply save me a step at this point.
Joe’s O’s cereal is Trader Joe’s version of Cheerios, and these Trader Joe’s Pumpkin O’s add pumpkin to the recipe. It’s a toasted whole grain cereal made with brown rice, oats, and real pumpkin. For those tracking (clearly not me), Pumpkin O’s are a low fat, vegan, and gluten free breakfast cereal. If nothing else, I’m just excited to finally eat something that doesn’t contain three month’s worth of sugar, although I will probably end up reviewing all of this by the end of the night.
Trader Joe’s Pumpkin O’s are big fat circles with a nice glazed coating and some brown speckles throughout. This could be cinnamon, or it could literally be anything else because I have no idea what I’m doing. I appreciate how thick this cereal is; it provides a really great crunch. The Pumpkin Joe’s are just sweet enough when eaten dry, drawing heavily from the brown sugar they’re sweetened with. There’s a very fine stroke of pumpkin spice, mostly cinnamon, that surfaces on the back end slowly but steadily.
Eaten with milk, the pumpkin flavor fades. This is another cereal that tastes remarkably different with and without milk. In the case of Trader Joe’s Pumpkin O’s, I prefer the taste eaten dry. To their credit, these O’s are pretty damn sturdy in milk. It’s quite amazing how much milk these absorbed while I tried to get a good picture (I didn’t), and yet the O’s weren’t compromised too badly. The flavor of these in milk reminded me more of Cap’n Crunch than Cheerios.
Trader Joe’s Pumpkin O’s are a nice, healthy pumpkin breakfast cereal, but pumpkin spice junkies may prefer to add some milk to one of the many pumpkin spice granolas currently on the market if they seek a more lethal pumpkin fix before 8:00 A.M.
How Much Of My Annual Income Trader Joe Now Owns Rating: 80% out of 10
Gives Us Hope For Cap’n Crunch “Oops! All Pumpkins” Rating: 10 out of 10!
Overall Rating: 6.5 out of 10
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Great review as always! Is the coating similar to the multigrain Cheerios? Those have a coating around them. And that’s good three hold hold up in milk. Problem with Cap’n Crunch is it tears up your mouth!
To me, the consistency is more similar to Apple jacks ( and just as addictive)
Hey Marla! That is actually a really great comparison. If you would like, I will give you the password to the blog because we could use some of that expertise. Have you tried Apple Jacks with marshmallows? Those are pretty fun too.