Plenty of oatmeal Mr. Tidbit has endlessly marveled at or muttered about various grocery manufacturers' prowess at keeping their shelf-space fizzing with new varieties. Flavors aside, probably none has turned a single item into as many almost indistinguishable versions as Quaker has managed to do with instant oatmeal.
Today, in addition to ordinary Quaker instant oatmeal in something like 13 flavors, we are accustomed to choosing among several flavors in each of these specialized varieties of Quaker instant oatmeal: Weight Control, Take Heart, Lower Sugar, Nutrition for Women, organic and Oatmeal Express (single serving in a cup). (Oatmeal Crunch is gone.)
And now there are two flavors of (wait for it) Quaker High Fiber instant oatmeal, with a whopping 10 grams of fiber per serving. For comparison, a serving of the regular, organic, Nutrition for Women and lower sugar versions each has 3 grams of fiber; Oatmeal Express has 4 grams (it's a bigger serving); Simple Harvest has 4; Take Heart has 5 or 6 depending on flavor and Weight Control has 6.
M&Ms go premium The pricy new M&Ms Premiums come in an hourglass-shaped box and have five flavors: mint chocolate (white chocolate wrapped in dark chocolate), mocha (milk chocolate), chocolate almond (almond piece wrapped in milk chocolate), raspberry almond (almond piece wrapped in raspberry white chocolate with dark chocolate swirl) and triple chocolate (milk, white and dark).
Remember the "thin, thin candy shell" of regular old M&Ms? Each has a pearly mottled shell colored (respectively) green, golden brown, blue, pink and purple, which makes them rather expensive-looking.
And appropriately so. At one discount store a six-ounce box of Premiums was $3.99, more than three times as much per ounce as 13 or 14-ounce bags of regular M&Ms (including the almond variety).
AL SICHERMAN
