Posted on 03/30/2021 12:08:52 PM PDT by mylife
Chances are, it's never struck you as particularly odd that there's an entire supermarket aisle devoted to nothing but cereal. For most of us, cereal is the ultimate convenient breakfast, and even the most sugary of varieties claim to offer nutritional benefits and a balanced start to your day. Every brand is trying to convince you it's something different, something better, and there's probably at least one you're buying into. The "kids only" sugar bombs boast whole grains, and Special K comes studded with chocolate bits and sweet yogurt clusters.
But it wasn't always that way. Cereal's position as America's default breakfast food is a remarkable feat, not of flavor or culture, but of marketing and packaging design. It's a century-long history of advertising, a brilliant campaign that capitalized on the intersection of industrialization, health-consciousness, and changing class attitudes that completely upended the way Americans ate. And it all began at a moment when products were primed to transcend regional tastes through the rise of mass-marketing.
"America at the turn of the century was just as vast and varied as it is now," explains historic gastronomist Sarah Lohman. "Fannie Farmer's The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, from 1906, which I think is a decent judge of what the average, multi-generational, Midwestern or New England American family is eating or aspiring to eat, is showing a meal that includes: fruit; hot cereal like Quaker oats or hominy; a substantial meat like beefsteak, 'warmed over lamb,' or broiled halibut; potatoes, toast, or muffins; or, of course, coffee." In other words, a breakfast of just hominy or porridge was considered a nutritionally unbalanced poor family's breakfast—not exactly something you'd aspire to. Cereal changed all of that.
(Excerpt) Read more at seriouseats.com ...
I prefer coffee.
Cmon man - frosted sugar bombs (later frosted golden bombs) powered my school morning for the subpar school lunch!
Eggs for me still, with a side of another protein with coffee.
Not a carbs person in the AM at all, unless there’s no coffee and I have to resort to a Mt. Dew for my caffeine fix.
I remember those commercials as a kid that said something like “this cereal, along with milk, juice, toast, eggs, meat and vegetables make a nutritious breakfast”.
Pure hype, now in chocolate!
I had bacon this morning. With a side of sausage.
I keep reading that many of today’s young people; meaning those under 35, don’t use dry cereal for breakfast very often. They prefer something they can throw in the microwave, heat & eat. Some don’t want to ‘deal with’ the dirty cereal bowl after eating. Having to wash that bowl is a big bother. That sounds sort of lazy to me, but breakfast should be an individual choice once you’re old enough to do it properly.
I’m allergic to milk so cereal was never a big part of my day. I used to get a box of frosted mini wheats once in a while and just eat them dry.
Breakfast most days is a couple granola bars and coffee. Weekends I make 2-3 eggs and whatever eat is in the fridge. Or, sometimes just coffee.
Right now I’m drinking 2020 Blend from Thrasher Coffee. I ran out of Deplorable Blend.
BRING BACK FORTIFIED OAT FLAKES!!!
“Make Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes an important part of your nutritious breakfast!”
I remember that. Same with Pop Tarts.
“Wellville”, the movie to see to complete your investigation into the grain industry.
I had bacon, followed by a side of bacon...
~Easy
If one looks at the long list of breakfast meals, there is no nutritional of any other common link.
The real thing, which all breakfast meals have in common, is the speed of preparation. All meals, served at breakfast, are really quick to make.
Cereal is the fastest to make, so that made it the leading breakfast meal.
After my daily paper route if in winter mom would warm me back up with oatmeal and raisins.
Nowadays, 2 cups o’ coffee and maybe a brunchy feed around 2pm. Then a truely light supper of homemade soup, or a veggie medley. We dont eat after 8pm.
If I eat early, it’s usually 1 egg, 1 toast, 1 small piece of fruit.
Here’s yer MCrap in a bowl..
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