Today’s post, like many I share, is a story about how a nourishing grain-based food transitioned into a class of stripped-carb-based products that, despite that they did not nourish, still came to dominate the market over the course of just a couple of decades.

Breakfast cereals have a praiseworthy origin. They were invented by health spa owners in Battle Creek, Michigan. The spa owners were providing an alternative to the comparatively laborious breakfast of the time — eggs, coffee, and meat in the form of beef, bacon or sausage. The invention of breakfast cereal also provided an economical use for the crumbs that fell to the bottom of the bread ovens at the health spas. The word cereal is another word for grain, and it is derived from the name Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture. We’ve gone a long way from that origin, but unfortunately it’s been in the wrong direction. 

The first mass-produced cereal, granula, was similar to what is now known as Grape–nuts. The name granula was derived from “granules” or “grains.” These nuggets were hard, and they needed to be soaked, often overnight, prior to being consumed. The name Grape-nuts was derived from the fact that the cereal was sweetened with maltose, or grape sugar, and that it had a vaguely nut-like flavor. For a few decades, a small number of similar whole-grain cereals predominated. 

Following World War II, items described as “cereal” began to change rapidly. Breakfast cereal companies hired advertising agencies, expanded their vision, and began to target the children’s market. Whole-grain cereals evolved into a completely different kind of product. To appeal to young taste buds, the new breakfast cereals were made primarily from white flour (stripped of bran and germ) and sugar. Staggering amounts of sugar. Kellogg’s Sugar Smacks, created in 1953, was 56 per cent sugar by weight. Froot Loops was 41 percent sugar by weight. Many brands of cookies contain less sugar.

Breakfast cereals are an example of what is called a “high margin-to-cost business.” Gross profit margins in the breakfast cereal industry are approximately 40-45 percent. They also have high “penetration,” meaning that the product is found in an estimated 90 percent of American homes. JP Morgan estimates that marketing, one of cereal’s biggest costs, typically accounts for 20-25 percent of the sales value.

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 [each] be listed separately, which pushes each one farther down the list.”

This results in an ingredient list that appears to have less sugar than actually exists in the product. Kessler adds that “Cereals often include some combination of sugar, brown sugar, fructose, high-fructose corn syrup, honey, and molasses.” The curious thing, to me, is that the offerings at the supermarket do not fool us. We know that most breakfast cereals are a poor substitute for a nutritious breakfast. Icons of popular culture, such as Calvin & Hobbes, the Simpsons’ Krusty the Clown, and even the Berenstain Bears, remind us exactly what breakfast cereal is.

Calvin eats 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: “Only sugar has more sugar.” Frosted Krusty-O’s were actually sold in 2007 to promote the newly released Simpson’s Movie. Other cereals featured on The Simpsons include “Frosting Gobs” and “Count Fudgula,” a probably reference to Count Chocula cereal. “Coco Chums” cereal is mentioned in the Berenstain Bears book Too Much Junk Food.

I call these products what they really are — candy.