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Breakfast of Champions
January 5, 1999
Ask anyone who grew up in
the city, the suburbs, on mountains, in valleys, at the seashore
or on a farm and they will tell you what they heard every morning:
"Eat your breakfast." Everyone knows "you can't go out until you
eat your breakfast," and they heard that from Mom. Getting to
school wasn't as important: "Hurry up and eat your breakfast or
you'll miss the bus." And, if pressures of time didn't work, "eat
your breakfast, it's good for you," would.
It
was a fact of life then, as now; you will feed your children breakfast.
As with most facts of life, however, breakfast as we knew it changed
with the times. My breakfast was Quaker Oats; then Old Fashioned
Mother's Oats; and, finally, Quick Quaker Oats. Summers we had
Nabisco Shredded Wheat and I colored the cardboard separators
(the first of company-inspired inducements to buy the product)
and Kellogg's Corn Flakes, but in the days before the anti-sogging
technique, no thank you! Nabisco, now a Post Company cereal, informs
buyers that although the box has been modernized, it's still the
same as it was when they began. "Why mess with perfection."
Children's tastes have not changed, either, but the competition
for their morning meal has. The breakfast hour is not spent at
fast-food places. Oh, families are lured in by offers of French
Toast and a playland, but only the parents order an egg! In most
cases the kids have cereal before being seatbelted into the car.
And what cereal will it be? Well, according to General Mills,
Cheerios is America's favorite breakfast cereal. "Who didn't grow
up with Cheerios?" they ask.
I always call Cheerios "Cheeri Oats" because that's what it was
when it was developed as an alternative to hot oatmeal. It was
America's first oat-based ready-to-eat cereal. It was "puffed."
It was "shot from guns," and by golly, we had to have it. Each
little "o" explodes from the barrel of a puffing gun -- one little
"O" at a time. "Oh, Mama, Mama, please," and so the spectacle
began.
I thought cereal-land must be like toyland: "once you cross it's
borders, you can never return again." I have absolutely no personal
interest in what's new. But, I am interested in what my grandchildren
are getting into on the World Wide Web. "Let's go to the rain
forest, MeMe," he said, and there we were. Kellogg's Toucan guided
us through the rain forest on Kellogg's Web Pages, Tony the tiger
took us through Cereal Cities, including those in the United Kingdom,
and Korea, among others. Throughout its 91 years, Kellogg has
had a "reputation for products that provide value and contribute
to a healthy diet." I read that, surfing along.
"Contribute"
is a buzz word when the products are featured for what they are.
I notice nothing has changed from the days of just one choice:
oatmeal. Cereal was always "part" of a healthy diet. Although
looked at ignominiously as "pap" and "gruel" and "porridge," oatmeal
not only contributes to a healthy diet, it promotes it. It doesn't
add fat to your diet and while you're digesting it, it lowers
your cholesterol. I'm still reading as I surf, and it's still
oatmeal -- regardless of whether it's puffed, chipped or shot
from guns. Horses take it straight; people like a little milk
and sugar.
At six, I would spoon the porridge over the lip of the bowl and
slowly, gruelingly slowly to Mama, shovel it into my mouth. Mama
would remind me of the poor starving Armenians. And wherever there
is famine, parents use that argument with their children. Today,
I wonder how many families throw out the natural cereals once
the rainbows, hearts and horseshoe-marshmallows are hand-picked
out of the Lucky Charms. We measure the children's' intelligence
by how young they are in discerning the sweets from the wheats.
From the web page: "Kellogg has a 'better breakfast' goal to develop,
manufacture, and market food choices for the first meal of the
day which are superior to and more appealing than all other choices.
They are totally committed to this central mission and make 12
of the 15 leading cereals in the world." All the companies want
this: to make products more appealing to us. The cereals are already
nutritious. They reach us through eye appeal and tempt our ears
with the illusion of snap, crackle and pop.
So, they promote. My children had to dig to the bottom of the
box for a baseball card. Now they can download them. There are
games, races, camp counseling. Where we once used box tops to
send in for Tony the Tiger spoons, we now save them for school
needs getting 15 cents per box top to be used toward computers,
vans, books, or paint. The companies put money back into the community.
All of our major cereal companies promote the clean, sharp, all
American image. The sponsorships go to our heroes. At General
Mills' map and index, you'll find among the early heroes The Lone
Ranger who spoke a few words about Cheerios before his "Hi Ho,
Silver, Away."
Although my recipes using cereal as an additive were invented
at home, the companies have kitchens and cookbooks of their own
now, using cereal as an ingredient right next to flour and eggs.
The companies want to be in our kitchens, literally. This was
evident when Karen Kafer, Kellogg Director of Communications,
said: "The ongoing development of the Web site represents Kellogg
Company's commitment to expanding consumer resources. The Web
represents a great opportunity for Kellogg to develop a more personal
relationship with every one of our consumers." (I wonder if she
can visualize the consumers eating the cereal over the sink. Neither
diet nor breakfast habits change,)
My grandson then took me to "You Rule School," a General Mills
site. This fun-filled place has games featuring Lucky Charms,
Trix, Cheerios, and Cocoa Puffs. (They do have a disclaimer saying
"Although 'You Rule School,' your parents rule the house, so ask
if you can download.")
We're buying what they're selling just as we always have ... only
now we have regular, king, family and variety packages. And, we
do love variety. We make choices and cereal manufacturers make
money -- more than they know what to do with, actually. However,
along with trimming the fat from our diets, they trim the fat
from their own profits by putting many dollars back into the community.
For instance, again with box tops: General Mills provides funding
grants to non-profit organizations through their foundation. And,
they announce, "virtually all of our product donations -- more
than 10 million pounds each year -- are provided to and distributed
through Second Harvest to food banks across the nation."
Quaker's Aunt Jemima brands sponsored the 1998 National Council
of Negro Women Tribute to Black Women Community Leaders Program.
Four women received $2500. Unless you're a kid downloading the
fun and games, you might miss these news releases. Now I'm a little
less resentful when I pay $4.00 for a settled-to-midway box of
fluffy oats. Until I read this, I thought the money was filling
the coffers of the fat cats and photogenic sports heroes.
We age beyond the hype and don't buy products because of endorsements.
I don't care about batting averages, olympic gold or who earned
a trip to Disneyland. I'll buy what I want and eat what I like.
And yet, I yielded. When a soft-spoken Kellogg's pitchman spoke
about corn flakes: "Taste it again for the very first time," I
did.
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