Drinking (breakfast) and driving.

So what on earth is this? you wonder. Or not, if you know already. 

The Crunch Cup is a clever device that purports to allow you to drink your breakfast cereal. No more messing around with spoons! No more trying to stuff a bowl in the cupholder of your car! Now you can fix your Cocoa Puffs up and head on out to work! 

I was given this as a gift by a relative who knows how much I love cereal. Would this be helpful to me, she wondered? Well, since I work from home now, commuting is not a hassle anymore, and not therefore a time in which I might wish to have some Lucky Charms in beverage form. Still, we must give this a try because it's clever and it's for cereal. Yum!

First: Take the thing apart and fill the outer cup to the milk line. 

Second: Fill the inner cup with cereal and apply lid. (You will notice that I used Cheerios for this test, and I have to confess that the first time I tried it I used cornflakes. Flakes get too mushy too fast, though, and are not suitable for drinking.)

Third: Insert cereal cup into milk cup, secure, and you're ready to go! Just make sure the white cap on top is on the drink position before you try to use it, or you'll wind up wearing some milk. 

And the question is: Does it work?

Yes. I think the design is interesting because when you tip it up, dry cereal and wet milk pour into your mouth at roughly equal speed. I suspect that the shape and size were carefully measured to ensure that, while being able to fit in the average vehicle cup holder. I don't think it would scale up or down well. I did manage to dribble a bit of milk on my shirt anyhow.

Considering its size, though, you don't get a lot of cereal, and in fact I found that I had milk left over when the cereal was almost gone. I say almost because some Cheerios remained stuck inside the cereal section after milk got inside. There's no non-messy way to extract them when that happens. 

I think it's useful for people who really do get their morning nutrition in the car. But I would caution that it's not as secure as, say, a good travel coffee mug. It only takes a bit of tip to get milk on you, and soured milk is not the scent you want to fragrance the office. If you leave it in a hot car all day while you work, it would probably get a little nasty by quittin' time. Then there’s the pothole question. So there are some issues to consider. 

The fact that it works at all is pretty neat, though. It is made of the finest plastic China can supply, and is dishwasher safe. Plus, if you're more of a smoothie drinker, just leave the insert cup out and it becomes a smoothie cup. Not a perfect one, since the top doesn't seal shut, but a big one.

I think I'll stick to granola bars and maybe an apple if I want to have breakfast in the car, though. I might get crumbs but I'd never get splashed.