By Aaron Wilkinson

© Jan. 1999

 

Breakfast cereal. They say it’s a multi-billion dollar industry. American’s must consume what, 12 trillion tons a year or so? When you see figures like that you have to ask yourself. "Why?"

Why would I (and millions of Americans) want to start my day (which has pretty much already been ruined by the event of waking up) by putting in my mouth and masticating something that just a few days ago was horse food. The whole concept of breakfast cereal was started way back in 1909 when famous Mr. Ed, the horse (who, bitter at the way TV producers were sticking peanut butter on his upper lip and then televising it nationally and consequently taking personal pleasure knowing that humans would be consuming food that in all likelihood was inferior to his own) and a friend of his, farmer Bill, decided it would be funny to see how many assorted grains and grasses they could get the public to consume on a daily basis. Now a days it’s all we eat in the morning. I’d say they were pretty successful.

So why do we do it? Why do we start each morning with a bowl of hay and milk? (By the way who thought of putting milk in cereal? Did they consciously think, "Hey maybe this straw would taste better if I bathed it in cow mucous membrane."?) I think it has a lot to do with they way they put the box together. Whoever thought up the cereal box was a marketing genius. First they’ve got a little flashy picture on the front there. That’s to distract you from paying attention to the rest of the box. If you make it past the cartoon, they’ve got the nutritional ‘facts’.

Which brings up another little item I’ve noticed. How come people read the nutritional facts every morning when they break out the box? Do they think the little numbers are going to change as the box gets empty?

The thing you are worried the most about on the nutritional facts on a cereal box is the "Saturated Fat" line. Saturated Fat. Everyone is so concerned about Saturated Fat. It’s ridiculous. You almost dropped this paper after read those two words together didn’t you? You ever see someone read that Saturated Fat label in the store? They’re going down the nutritional facts. "Sodium, uh-huh not too bad. Carbohydrates, Mm-hmm. Fat-" (And you know ‘Fat’ is just a little buffer they have right before the Saturated Fat so that people get warmed up and don’t have to read the dreaded two words cold turkey.) "Fat. Ennnhh okay." Then they see the horrible ‘SF’ listing – "SATURATED FAT 2 PICO-GRAMS!!! THAT’S NEARLY THE WEIGHT OF A GNAT LEG! I COULD DIE!!!!!" They slam the box back onto the shelf and walk their cart straight down the isle with a slightly pale face, looking neither to the left or the right. Then they head over to the ice cream isle where they proceed to buy 45 gallons, not even bothering to see that Saturated Fat is actually the third ingredient in the list- sugar, ice, saturated fat, cream, soy bean oil, linseed oil, red 653, shellac…

But back to cereal. The flashy picture and the nutritional facts are all to try to keep you from reading the ingredients. You know they are because the picture and nutritional facts are nice, neat, bold, just asking you to look at them. The ingredients are in small print at the bottom of the box on one side and they list ‘em really close together so that only people with 20-13 vision and better can separate the letters. See, they know if normal people could read the ingredients, the company would start getting letters like, "Do you honestly think I’ll eat something we feed our pony? You believe you can shred it or toast it and suddenly it evolves into a higher order?" or "What the heck are you trying to pass off here!? You guys sell this stuff for $5.50? I can buy it at the feed store for 75 cents a bale!!!"

Somewhere along the line, cereal companies got the idea that people eat breakfast because they needed a nutritional meal at the start of the day. Wrong! I eat cereal in the morning because I want something to keep me awake while I dress. It’s difficult to doze off when I’ve a wad of cereal and milk in my mouth. My head starts to nod and then suddenly I’m choking and spewing little pieces of matter about. It’s very effective. To this end (staying awake in the morning) I suggest that you look at the ingredients before anything else. Try and buy cereals that consist mostly of things God never intended us to put in our mouths. Artificial flavors, artificial colors, sodium benzoate, tin, preservatives, formaldehyde, artificial sugar. This stuff is a jolt to your body. It’ll keep you awake ‘cause every little microbe in you is running around trying to get away from these things. Besides, pseudo, artificially, replicated cereal has some good qualities that normal cereal can’t quite seem to attain. For instance artificial cereals never get soggy in milk. That’s because of the small amounts of weapon grade plutonium they put in there. (THAT’LL start your day off right, let me tell you.)

In closing here is a little maxim for you to remember when eating cereal.

"Whatsoever things are sweet, whatsoever things are colored. If there be any marshmallows, and if there be any chocolate let your bowl fill with these things."