Cereal is the food that Americans love to hate. Ask anyone about cereal
and the
first thing you are likely to hear is a complaint. People complain
about the
high price of cereal, the dumb TV ads, the sugar, the boxes. And yet,
despite
their complaints, they eat it – 2.7 billion packages of cereal per year
at a
cost of almost $9 billion. Every other American begins his or her day
with a
bowl of cereal. For some, cereal is the ultimate comfort food, the
stuff to eat
when going through a divorce or other painful personal experience. For
many,
cereal is a generation marker. If you want to identify a Generation
Xer, ask
about Freakies. After doing five years of research and writing for the book
Cerealizing
America: The Unsweetened Story of American Breakfast Cereal (co- authored
with East Coast-based, cereal-box collector Scott Bruce), I have come
to the
conclusion that Americans treat cereal like part of the family. Deep
down we
love and trust cereal, but most of the time, it drives us crazy.
A walk down the cereal aisle in your average supermarket is a lot
like a visit
with the relatives. Count Chocula, Sprinkle Spangles, Cap’n Crunch,
Crunchberries, Fruity Pebbles, Cocoa Pebbles, Cocoa Puffs, Reese’s
Peanut
Butter Puffs, Frosted Flakes, Frosted Mini Wheats, King Vitaman. Why
are so
many people putting so much energy into making a simple food product
simply
ridiculous? Can’t we talk some sense into our cereal relatives and make
them
shut up? If you are with a child, it gets even worse. The whining
begins right
after you pass the oatmeal.
HEB’s Central Market, my neighborhood grocery, and other specialty
supermarkets are working to free consumers from the mass hysteria of
cereal
packaging. “We move through a tremendous amount of bulk cereal compared
to
box,” explains Eric Melcer, specialty foods manager for HEB’s Central
Market.
“Price doesn’t seem to matter that much. It may be that people just
don’t like
all that packaging.”
Walking down the cereal aisle at Central Market is like a trip back
in time.
There’s Montana’s Hot Cereal, Cream of the West, Roasted Ranch Oats
shipped
from Billings, Montana. Nearby are packages of Thick & Rough Milled
Oats,
from the Silver Palate, a gourmet take-out establishment in New York.
Arrowhead
Mills, an organic food company located in Deaf Smith County, Texas,
fills the
shelves with mutely colored bags and boxes bearing Bear Mush, Rye
Flakes Barley
Flakes, Oat Flakes, and others. Erewhon, the food company begun by the
brown
rice munching practitioners of macrobiotics, offer Brown Rice Cream,
Barley
Plus, and Graham Flakes, while a former manager of the Grateful Dead
presents
shoppers with the environmentally sensitive cereals Rainforest Crisp
and
Rainforest Flakes. Other marketers herald cereals made from amaranth,
spelt,
kamut, and other exotic grains.
Back to Nature, Barbara’s, Prairie Maid, Lundberg Family Farms, Good
Shepherd,
Breadshop – the healthful cereal brand names in Central Market evoke an
almost
religious purity that seems far away from the traditional supermarket
cereal
aisle.
But is it really so far? The inventors of many of the early breakfast
cereals
were health nuts, people who were on the same path as today’s organic
cereal
sellers. Lawyer Harold D. Perky began selling little baked pillows of
Shredded
Wheat in the 1890s as a cure for dyspepsia, which was the 19th-century
term for
stomachache. Dr. John Harvey Kellogg was a world renowned surgeon and
devout
Seventh Day Adventist who invented the breakfast flake in 1895 for his
patients
in Battle Creek, Michigan.
In addition to writing self-help books,
Kellogg
was one of the first Americans to promote peanut butter and yogurt as
health
foods, along with a grain concoction he dubbed granola.
Today in Central Market, shoppers can view the full flowering of
Kellogg’s
granola creation. Right next to the Organically Grown Kaleidocorn
Popcorn,
shoppers can gaze at specially designed wood and plexiglass bins full
of eleven
different kinds of organic granola, including Rainforest Granola,
Fat-Free
Cinnamon Granola, Organic Raspberry Granola, Cocoa Granola, and
Strawberry ‘n’
Creme Granola. “When we first opened, customers said, you stink when it
comes
to bulk,” says John Campbell, the general manager of Central Market.
“In one
year we’ve expanded from 40 to 500 items.”
Bulk cereals are an increasingly popular item for hype-weary
shoppers. “My
biggest problem is that I just can’t get enough different kinds of bulk
cereal,” complains Melcer. “If I order raspberry granola, somebody
wants
cranberry.”
But even Melcer, the prince of organic bulk cereals, has a soft spot
in his
heart for the sugary product hyped on television and the billboard
cereal
aisle. “I grew up in Michigan in a quality foods-oriented family,” the
29-year-old supermarket veteran admits. “When we were kids, sugar
cereal was
the holy grail.”
Every year, Melcer went on a school field trip to the Kellogg factory
in
Battle Creek. He and his school chums exited the cereal plant with two
big Tony
the Tiger bags full of misprinted individual serving boxes of Sugar
Smacks,
Apple Jacks, and other forbidden Kellogg’s cereals. “All the way back
on the
bus we’d eat that stuff,” Melcer recalls smiling. “When we arrived home
my
parents would take one look at me and say, `Oh, no. He went to Battle
Creek
again.'”
The granola buyer for Central Market still stocks a selection of
cereal
standards including Kellogg’s Rice Krispies, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, and
Post
Grape Nuts, and fondly remembers the cereal that marked his youth,
Freakies.
“I can still remember the Freakies theme song,” says Melcer as he
sings a few
lines, “It went to the tune of `Hello My Honey.’ I bet my parents still
have
some of those little Freakies character figures in with my stuff. It’s
amazing
how different generations have different memories of cereals.”
Whether we like it or not,
our national soul is nurtured on Fruity Pebbles, Honey Nut Cheerios,
and
Granola, just as our national psyche is reflected on the cereal box.
From
Mickey Mouse to
Babe Ruth to Bullwinkle to Barbie, from flakes to
puffs to
crunchy little pieces, cereal has delivered us the images and the food
we
crave.
Is this a bad thing? Is cereal an overpriced drug forced on the
American
people by a corporate conspiracy?
No. Underneath the screaming headline packaging, the jump-cut TV ads,
and the
mind numbing nutritional statistics, cereal today is made from the same
stuff
that nourished the Greeks and the Romans. Cereal is still basically
oats,
wheat, barley and other grains sold in a ready-to-eat form that needs
no
refrigeration. Although we hate to admit it, cereal is still pretty
good stuff.
Bill Crawford is co-author with Scott Bruce of Cerealizing
America: The
Unsweetened Story of American Breakfast Cereal (Faber & Faber)
This article appears in May 5 • 1995 and May 5 • 1995 (Cover).