Posted on 02/24/2016 6:51:52 AM PST by dennisw
Few things are as painless to prepare as cereal. Making it requires little more than pouring something (a cereal of your choice) into a bowl and then pouring something else (a milk of your choice) into the same bowl. Eating it requires little more than a spoon and your mouth. The food, which Americans still buy $10 billion of annually, has thrived over the decades, at least in part, because of this very quality: Its convenience.
And yet, for today's youth, cereal isn't easy enough.
On Monday, the New York Times published a story about the breakfast favorite, and the most disconcerting part was this:
Almost 40 percent of the millennials surveyed by Mintel for its 2015 report said cereal was an inconvenient breakfast choice because they had to clean up after eating it.
The industry, the piece explained, is struggling -- sales have tumbled by almost 30 percent over the past 15 years, and the future remains uncertain. And the reasons are largely those one would expect: Many people are eating breakfast away from the home, choosing breakfast sandwiches and yogurt instead of more traditional morning staples. Many others, meanwhile, too busy to pay attention to their stomachs, are eating breakfast not at all.
But there is another thing happening, which should scare cereal makers -- and, really, anyone who has a stake in this country's future -- more: A large contingent of millennials are uninterested in breakfast cereal because eating it means using a bowl, and bowls don't clean themselves (or get tossed in the garbage). Bowls, kids these days groan, have to be cleaned.
"Convenience is the one thing that's really changing trends these days," Howard Telford, an industry analyst at market research firm Euromonitor, said last year.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
As a single dad with 4 daughters what don’t like to do dishes, paper plates and bowls are in heavy usage in my house.
“Well I woke up this morning and I got myself a beer.”
“Well I woke up this morning and I got myself a beer.”
“The future’s uncertain and the end is always near.”
Breakfast by J Morrison.
Too bad they stopped making the little boxes with perforations so that you could simply split open the box and pour your milk into it . . . not needing a bowl. Clean the spoon with your tongue, wipe it on your shirt - and pop it back in the drawer. No mess, no fuss - except that it required you to get up and cross the room to the garbage can and throw the box away.
Might be too much effort for a Millennial.
Don’t panic go ORGANIC!!! I eat cereal but 90% of the time in the form of real oatmeal, not that stripped instant crap that is like white bread
I often enjoy a bowl of Raisin Bran or Grape Nuts before bed.
I grew up on Frosted Rice Krinkles, at least 2-3 boxes a week, and they stopped making them. I have been depressed every since.
Yeah, I picked all that up on the street. LOL
Nothing practical like that when I studied EE.
It’s cause they don’t get up early enough in the morning for breakfast.
I hate cereal! I’ll eat oatmeal or cream of wheat, but I hate cereal. I’m in my 50s.
My kids like it more than me.
I stopped drinking milk when I was in my early 20s. I mix cereal and yogurt together. Yummy.
I do put a little milk on oatmeal, but just a little.
That is my only milk.
Go to youtube & watch Krinkles the Klown pitch his cereal. In black & white it’s semi-creepy.
The backwards version is even creepier. From the clown’s mouth to your breakfast table.
;^)
Most cereals today are nothing but sugar.
They do still sell those. I believe Santa Claus put some in the stockings at Grammy’s house, this past Christmas. The 4 year old thought the little cereals were “adorable”. I think they are also frequently used at the motels’ breakfast bar buffet set-ups.
I had to take a calculus based circuits class, man, hat sucked. I couldn’t do an EE degree. Only worse course I had to take was thermodynamics. I took them both as an 8 week summer school course while working nights.
I think they still have those. We got them for camping, and it hasn’t been that ling.
Them’s some mean streets. Yikes.
Concur. I eat three eggs, milk, and a Babel with lox and cream cheese everyday except during Passover or the like. About 1/2 pot of coffee. Sometimes no bagel.
If on the run, eggs are boiled
I’m not going to fuss at them for doing the right thing, even if it is for the wrong reasons.
Cereal is one of the unhealthiest foods you can eat. The old job about the box having more nutritional value than the cereal inside wasn’t far from the truth. Without the milk what have you got? Empty carbs. Without the fortified vitamins and minerals the only thing the cereal provides is calories.
My kids seem to prefer a breakfast smoothie. Has the milk, plus fruit and even veggies (how they drink a green smoothie is beyond me, but they seem to like it). I have no doubt that it’s better for them than a bowl of cereal.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
