Has it been almost a year since Nabisco introduced Newtons Fruit Thins, the cookies that Mr. Tidbit described as round graham crackers with a little oatmeal and tiny bits of dried fruit? It has, so perhaps Mr. Tidbit should underline part of that description: Notwithstanding the Newtons name, Newtons Fruit Thins do not have a fruit filling; the fruit is tiny dried bits.

With that much time behind us, it's no surprise that Nabisco has a new product that Mr. Tidbit would say seems related to those Newtons Fruit Thins cookies. No, it's not Newtons Fruit Thick cookies. It's belVita breakfast biscuits, in three flavors.

What's a "breakfast biscuit," you ask? The answer would seem to be a whole-grain cookie enhanced with 10 percent of four vitamins and described as "part of a balanced breakfast." Although Mr. Tidbit would say that the dining experience is similar to that provided by Fruit Thins, right down to the fruit bits in one flavor, the vitamin enhancement in belVitas isn't the only difference: belVitas' first ingredient is a whole-grain blend of rolled oats and rye flakes (or, in one flavor, whole grain wheat flour); that of Fruit Thins is unbleached enriched flour. And belVitas are larger, thicker and oval-shaped.

Additionally, whereas Newtons Fruit Thins cookies come in a 10.5-ounce box containing about 30 cookies, belVita breakfast biscuits come in an 8.8-ounce box containing five 1.76-ounce packs of four biscuits each. But ounce-for-ounce the calorie, fat and sugar contents are virtually identical.

Mr. Tidbit assumed, of course, that the new belVitas would cost more per ounce than the Fruit Thins. No, they don't! At one store Fruit Thins clocked in at 45 cents an ounce and belVitas were 42 cents an ounce. You could have knocked Mr. Tidbit over with a breakfast biscuit.

In memoriam Dear friends: Sunday would have been my son Joe's 41st birthday. He died in a seven-story fall from his college dorm room in Madison, Wis., in 1989. He had taken LSD; he was 18.

Hug your kids.

AL SICHERMAN