This Discontinued Candy Cereal From The '80s Was A Dentist's Worst Nightmare

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Nerds: high on the list of the most popular Halloween candies, low on the list of food items that ever needed to be made into cereals. Yet, the 1980s were a wild time in the breakfast cereal department, with ingenious marketing tie-ins (hello-o-o, Star Wars C-3PO's cereal memories!) and dubious truckloads of sugar in every bite, which is probably why the list of discontinued '80s cereals is almost as long as a phone book. Back in 1985, Ralston, known for its wide stable of desserts disguised as breakfast, had the mind-blowing idea to make a cereal that evoked the sight and taste of Nerds candy.

The cereal was granular and eye-poppingly colorful, just like original Nerds. Also like Nerds, the cereal box was divided into two tubular bags of product so you could mix flavors; both orange & cherry and grape & strawberry were on the market. Social media denizens of a certain age have fond memories of the cereal, which must have been like catnip for small children. There's an anecdotal (and therefore possibly untrue) tale that Nerds cereal sent at least one child to the doctor after passing a large amount of undigested food coloring, which may be why the cereal was pulled from shelves only a year later. 

It's hard not to look back at Nerds cereal and its ilk with 2020s sensibilities and wonder what, exactly, food companies thought they were feeding the youth of America. With today's concerns about excessive sugar and artificial food dyes (some of which are justified), Nerds cereal would most likely never exist as it did in the '80s.

To go by the nostalgia of middle-aged folks on the internet, Nerds cereal was a big deal. "Ahhhhkk. Dude! I had this/these! A whole piece of my five year old self just woke up," enthused a commenter on Reddit. Over on Facebook, an image of the cereal evoked similarly warm and happy memories. "What I wouldn't give to bring this back!" one writer sighed. Some have also mentioned the fact that Nerds cereal came with a premium prize: two mini boxes of actual Nerds candy. One could apparently also send away for a gated bowl that you could use to segregate your cereal flavors, then mix them together when you were ready.

Over on YouTube, home chef Caleb Brown did his own research and attempted to crack the code on what gave Nerds cereal its inimitable appeal. He claimed that a solution of citric acid for tartness in the sugar coating gave the crispy rice cereal its tang that evoked the sour kiss of Nerds. He also pored over the nutritional information for the '80s Nerds cereal and determined that a mixture of four different flours was behind the cereal's crunch.

Alas, Nerds cereal is long gone, and, as we theorized, unlikely to come back as it was. To quench your candy fixation nowadays, there are bulk bags of Nerds strawberry candy available for purchase, as well as that pinnacle of modern-day Nerds technology, Nerds Gummy Clusters. Still, we don't recommend putting them in a bowl and adding milk!