New cereals totally confusing

General Mills Total Cereal. Honey Clusters, With Strawberries, and Vanilla Yogurt. $4.19 per 14.75-ounce to 18-ounce box.

Bonnie: General Mills seems to be out to confuse consumers with these new Total line extensions. If you looked at all three boxes at once, you would probably think the three have significant nutrient variations, specifically in whole grains and calcium.

That's not exactly true. Each is an excellent source of whole grains, meaning a serving of each provides 16 grams of whole grains, or one of the three servings that our new dietary guidelines suggest we consume each day. Each is also an excellent source of calcium, although only a banner on the front of the extra-sweet vanilla yogurt cereal makes that claim. (Seems to me that General Mills is trying to create the incorrect impression that the yogurt coating adds additional significant calcium.)

All are decent whole-grain cereals with 3 (the Honey) to 4 grams of fiber per breakfast bowl and are enriched with enough nutrients to be like taking a multivitamin. If I had to select from these three new Totals, I'd choose Strawberry — despite its slightly higher cost per ounce — because it's less sweet.

Carolyn: This is Total's response to Kellogg's expanding line of Special K cereals aimed at dieters. I say that because the flavors almost exactly parallel Special K's newer offerings.

As with regular Total, these new ones are being marketed for total health rather than weight loss (which makes sense, since all but the yogurt contain more calories than comparable Special K cereals).

For all the nutrition talk on the back of the package of Total With Strawberries, it might just as well have been called Total With Antioxidants. As Bonnie just pointed out, the Vanilla Yogurt is being touted for its calcium, although it also has the best taste, for Total, that is. The Honey Clusters flavor is hardly any better than regular Total, which, if you've never tried, tastes like thickened Wheaties.

A Total press release says Total Honey Clusters met or exceeded the expectations of 99 percent of consumers. I'm in the 1 percent who believe 99 percent of consumers are suffering from way too low expectations.

V8 100 Percent Organic Vegetable Juice. $2.99 per 32-ounce bottle.

Bonnie: Organic V8 is no surprise to me. Once Campbell's introduced its organic tomato juice in 2003, it was only a matter of time until it used the organic tomatoes from its fields for V8. Way to go, Campbell's.