Breakfast cereals have a more or less praiseworthy origin. Invented by a couple of resourceful health spa owners to offer an alternative to the usual breakfast of the time — eggs and coffee, plus beef, bacon or sausage — breakfast “cereal” not coincidentally also provided an economical use for the crumbs that fell to the bottom of the bread ovens at the spas. The word “cereal” is simply a synonym for grain, and it is derived from Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture. We’ve come a long way from those origins, but unfortunately it’s been in the wrong direction.

The first mass-produced cereal, granula, was similar to what today is manufactured and sold as Grape–nuts. The name ‘granula’ was derived from ‘granules’ or ‘grains.’ Granula nuggets were hard, so they were soaked overnight prior to being consumed. The brand name Grape-nuts is a reflection of the fact that the cereal was sweetened with maltose, then known as grape sugar, and that it had a vaguely nutty flavor. In the first decades of “breakfast cereal,” several whole-grain cereal products similar to Grape-nuts were available, though this was the only one that survived.

After World War II, things began to change. A lot. Breakfast cereal companies hired advertising agencies to expand their vision, and began specifically to target children in the sights of their marketing efforts. The once whole-grain cereals evolved into a completely different type of product. To appeal to children’s naive taste buds, newer breakfast cereals were made mainly of white flour (stripped of its bran and germ) and sugar. The amounts of sugar were staggering. Kellogg’s Sugar Smacks, created in 1953, was 56 percent sugar by weight. Froot Loops was 41 percent sugar. There are brands of cookies with less sugar.

Breakfast cereals are what economic analysts call a high “margin-to-cost” business. Gross profit margins in the breakfast cereal industry are on the order of 40 to 45 percent. The product is found in an estimated 90 percent of American households, a statistic known as “penetrance.” Breakfast cereal has high penetrance, which is very good for business. JP Morgan estimates that marketing, one of cereal’s biggest costs [emphasis mine], typically accounts for 20 to 25 percent of the sales value.

For more information on the connection between the sugar content of cereals marketed specifically to children and amounts of television advertising, check out this article from TIME Magazine, called The Sugary Brands Doing the Most Kid-Chasing.

Breakfast cereals are one of a select group of products that layer different kinds of sweeteners in and among their lists of ingredients. David Kessler, in  The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite, explains that “If a food contains more sugar than any other ingredient, federal regulations dictate that sugar be listed first on the label. But if a food contains several different kinds of sweeteners, they can be listed separately, which pushes each one farther down the list.”

This requirement causes the ingredient list to appear as if it has less sugar than the product actually contains. Dr. Kessler adds that “Cereals often include some combination of sugar, brown sugar, fructose, high-fructose corn syrup, honey, and molasses.” Their penetrance remains high, which makes it seem like we remain blissfully ignorant, but I’m not sure that’s actually right. I don’t really think that the offerings at the supermarket are really fooling us. Deep down, I think plenty of us already know that most commercial cereals are a poor substitute for a nutritious breakfast. Notice how icons of popular culture such as Calvin & Hobbes, the Simpsons’ Krusty the Clown, and even the Berenstain Bears, poke fun at the fact that we know exactly what breakfast cereal is.

For example, Calvin enjoys Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs, “tasty, lip-smacking, crunchy-on-the-outside, chewy-on-the-inside [that] don’t have a single natural ingredient or essential vitamin to get in the way of that rich, fudgy taste.” Hobbes says they make his heart skip like “eating a bowl of milk duds.” Krusty the Clown, from the Simpsons, endorses Chocolate Frosted Frosty Krusty Flakes by saying that “Only sugar has more sugar.” And they aren’t just a figment of the writers’ imagination; Frosted Krusty-O’s were actually sold back in 2007 to promote The Simpson’s Movie. Other cereals featured on The Simpsons include “Frosting Gobs” and “Count Fudgula,” references to the various frosted cereals (and cake frosting) and Count Chocula cereal, respectively. “Coco Chums” cereal is mentioned in the Berenstain Bears book Too Much Junk Food.

Let’s start calling these products what they actually are, treats or candy. Then let’s use them for dessert, if we eat them at all, and start eating (and feeding our children) real food for breakfast.