A Modern Mystery off of a Box of Grape Nuts

Miss Edith is a fan of Grape Nuts cereal; she even likes Grape Nut pudding, which almost no one else does as far as she can tell. So there are often multiple boxes of this unfashionable Post cereal around the house, sometimes as many as seven boxes stuffed in the pantry if there's been a sale.

So with all my admiration for Grape Nuts in mind, I'd really like to know what the hell the people at Post were thinking of when they developed this truly god-awful sounding recipe, even the name of which leaves me scratching my head:

Grape Nuts Tabbouleh Salad

1 pt. cherry tomatoes, quartered
1/2 cup finely chopped yellow or white onion
1/2 cup finely chopped green onion
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup prepared Good Seasons Zesty Italian Salad dressing mix (for fat free dressing)
2 tbs. lemon juice
4 1/2 tbs. finely chopped fresh mint
1 cup Post Grape Nuts cereal


We were going okay until we got to the Zesty Italian salad dressing; no good-thinking tabbouleh salad lover is gonna quibble with the tomatoes or the onions or the parsley. But how hard would it be, really, to just say "olive oil and vinegar"?
Then, okay, the lemon juice and, in particular, the mint -- nice touches. Very authentic. Claudia Roden would be proud.

But then... then... Grape Nuts? And no actual tabbouleh? Have the people at Post lost their collective minds?

Has anyone on god's green earth actually prepared this? And if so... why? I'm dying to know.