Don’t you love the word “enriched”? Wonder what marketing scientist developed that catchword.
The simplest way to describe the production of most breakfast cereals is “strip and enrich.” Strip the raw materials down to a white, fluffy, mouth-filler that tastes like cookies in milk, then enrich with cheap synthetic vitamins and throw in a plastic prize. Blanket it all in bright advertising to convince parents that the fatherly food industry is working hard towards growing a generation of healthy children. After all, Fruit Loops must have fruit in it, right?
From grannies to super heroes, North America comes to breakfast with bowl in hand. I’m sure most of us can reminisce sneaking out of bed before our parents got up and digging like a dog to the bottom of the cereal box to get that special plastic treasure. For most kids, cereal is the highlight of the morning.
I loved my grandfather. He was a man of porridge. He ate porridge every morning for breakfast with the exact same amount of brown sugar and milk at exactly 6:15 a.m. No artistry of shape and color for grandpa—he loved his porridge. When I asked him why he ate so much porridge, he said, “Keeps me regular.” Nary a magazine beside his toilet—swift and efficient. His grandfather ate porridge before him, a tradition passed on from generation to generation. He could not understand the new age of Cocoa Puffs, Fruit Loops, bell bottom jeans and neon ties. The communion of porridge each morning with his wife seemed to personify the simplicity of their lives. They were not caught up with the latest breakfast cereal politics, cartoon super-heroes, fighting for the hearts of America’s children.
Today, as mom and dad race off to work in the morning to maintain a busy materialistic lifestyle, their children learned there were hungers porridge could never feed.
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