Snack Food Review - General Mills' Sweet 'n Salty Chex Mix: Honey Nut

Notable on the front of the package of this flavor of Chex Mix brand snack mix is the use of golden yellows to contrast with the reds and blues of the standard logo and hint at the honey flavoring to be found inside.  This choice of color scheme is backed up by the image of a jar of honey at one end of a sort of ribbon that streaks across the package.  This honey jar is translucent, allowing the viewer to see the sticky, sweet substance inside.  The honey in this jar is either being added to or subtracted from by a grooved honey dipper similar to the one my grandfather utilized in dressing his toast at breakfast.   One difference between the dipper depicted here and the one I remember from my childhood is that the one depicted here is apparently capable of hovering over a honey pot with no visible means of support.  The one we used required manual assistance from the user.

The aforementioned ribbon that culminates in the honey jar serves mainly to provide a solid yellow background over which brown writing can inform us of the name of the flavor, the fat content relative to regular potato chips, and the fact that the product employs both natural and artificial means of arriving at its flavor.  Natural and artificial, huh?  Well, I guess that just about covers the whole spectrum, then, doesn't it?

Finally, below the ribbon and supporting the honey jar, we see a section of honeycomb, complete with honey in each hole.  On the honeycomb, separate from the honey jar, we find a tastefully arranged pile of the various snack pieces that makes up this bag of "mix."  More on the pieces later.  For now, I would like to observe one thing that is missing from the package art - and from the product itself.

Nuts.

That's right, folks.  Honey Nut Chex Mix appears to contain no nuts whatsoever.  There are no almonds, cashews, filberts, macadamias, Brazils, peanuts, or legumes of any kind depicted on this package, or inside among the mixed snack pieces.  A quick glance at the Federally mandated "Ingredients" list on the reverse of the package contains no mention of nuts either.  Perhaps they only meant "Honey Nut" as "vaguely recalling the flavor of honey and nuts."  This may well be the case, but nuts aren't even listed in an "artificial nut flavor" capacity.  The honey part of the flavor?  Why yes, there is honey, right towards the end of the "Contains 2% or less of" portion of the ingredient list.  But nuts?  Nowhere to be found.  All we see is a cryptic note that reads, "May Contain Peanut Ingredients," which seems to indicate that General Mills can't remember or isn't sure if they put peanuts in this product or not.  I'm here to tell you, General, that you did not.

Now we examine the contents of the package.  There are six standard snack pieces that, in varying quantities, make up the contents of this Honey Nut Chex Mix.  

Not surprisingly, the most abundant pieces are the two varieties of Chex cereal provided herein - Wheat Chex and Rice Chex.  These crispy, postage stamp-sized pieces are formed in their traditional basket-weave style, making a sort of hollow pillow in which the granules of salt and honey-flavored sugar that provide most of the snack's flavor can be captured.  

Following the cereal bits in their ubiquity are the pretzel pieces.  These come in two varieties as well.  One is a circular piece that either represents the circular nature of life in the same manner as the ancient Ouroboros (the snake that eats its own tail), or is perhaps simply easy to manufacture in bulk.  The other pretzel shape is one of a window with four open panes.  Perhaps the circular piece, then, is meant to be an eye, which, along with the window shape, is meant to bring to mind the old saying, "the eye is the window to the soul."  In any case, the inclusion of pretzels in the mix adds a level of dryness that I can't imagine focus groups actually would have asked for.  Sure, they hold the salt and sugar almost as well as the Chex cereal pieces, but I would gladly trade away the variety provided by the pretzels for the crispiness and relative moisture inherent in more Chex cereal.  

Rounding out the mix are two varieties (I sense a trend, here) of flour-based "Graham's cracker" pieces.  One is shaped into a mesmerizing spiral that one dare not gaze at too long lest one feel compelled to purchase dozens more bags of the mix, or whatever the hypnotic suggestion built into the cracker may be.  The last, and by far the most rare piece (only two instances of this piece in the sample bag) is a simple straight shape, rather like a tiny breadstick.  These two pieces really hold onto the honey flavor.  Perhaps the honey flavor is baked into every cracker, providing some built-in punch to these pieces in addition to the crystalline flavoring sprinkles that may be stuck to their exteriors.  At any rate, these pieces' delicious flavor tends to surprise the mouth after the eyes have gazed upon their pale color and rather pedestrian designs.

So where does that leave General Mills' Sweet 'n Salty Chex Mix: Honey Nut edition as a whole?  By and large, the honey flavor provides a strong counterpoint to the typical saltiness of a given Chex Mix.  The non-pretzel pieces are crisp and fresh ("Freshness Preserved by BHT," according to the Ingredients list).  Even the dryness of the pretzels is not enough to turn one off of the snack as a whole - especially when the pretzels are included in the same bite with the other types of pieces.  Taken altogether, General Mills' Sweet 'n Salty Chex Mix: Honey Nut flavor snack mix is certainly worth the $0.65 semi-premium vending machine price tag.  But I will say this to General Mills, in closing:  What's a guy got to do to get some nuts around here?