The Fight Against Big Cereal

A few days ago I got my once every ten year craving for puffed wheat cereal.  I ate it occasionally as a kid but I've always added quite a bit of sugar to it because it tastes too bland without it.

In my rush through the grocery store the other night, I was in a hurried, antisocial mood.  I avoided people I vaguely knew by feigning interest in products and was an asshole to someone who recognized me from TV and denied I was the person he thought I was.  "But you look so much like him," he said, "Are you sure you just moved here from Kentucky?"

In the cereal aisle, I recalled my puffed wheat urge.  In my hurry I passed by the normal puffed wheat, and for some reason, for the first time in my life, I grabbed a box of Sugar Crisps.  They claim to be "Delicious Puffs of Wheat with a Touch of Honey."

The photo, "enlarged to show texture," made them look like normal puffs of wheat, but with a little healthy sweetener built right in so I wouldn't have to add sugar. 

The vintage boxes pictured on the internet have captions like "sugar coated puffs of wheat" and even "candy-coated puffs of wheat." They were more honest quotes than today's "with a touch of honey."

The next morning my three year old son came into my room and woke me up.  We visited, then something came over him and he left suddenly and ran downstairs.  I thought he had to run to the bathroom and go pee but I heard some rustling and clanking in the kitchen below my bedroom.  A moment later, he returned with my newly-purchased, unopened box of Sugar Crisps, which he had never seen before but was no doubt drawn to it by the large, friendly cartoon bear on the box.  He assumed A) it was for him and B) it was tasty.

I tell ya, that pissed me off.  It really did.  I realized marketing shit to three year olds really does work.  Why didn't they just put a picture of a fat kid with diabetes on the box?

But I had no idea until I actually tasted some Sugar Crisps for the first time in my life.  First I took a felt marker to the box and changed the bear into a scary, satanic figure so my kid would no longer be attracted to his seductive furry, friendly face.

Then I ate the cereal. Delicious and addictive.  That's right, addictive.  I read the ingredient list.

First ingredient: sugar.  What?  What do they do, coat the sugar with a light taste of honey?  The short answer is yes. I thought puffed wheat was some kind of cereal.  It's not.  There's a hint of cereal in the box in the form of whey power or something, but basically the puffs are made out of sugar and, get this, hydrogenated coconut oil. Hence the addictive part.

It reminds me of pop corn at the Rainbow Cinemas. There's something addictive about that too.  I presume it's the coconut oil.

My point is, why aren't people fighting back about the cereal industry like they are against tobacco and fast food?

A recent CTV story reported that one bowl of these cereals is equivalent to the sugar in a chocolate bar.  They made the point that most parents would cringe at the idea of giving their kids several chocolate bars for breakfast every morning.

With the growing epidemic of childhood obesity and with these food companies marketing shit as food to preschoolers, we all should think about fighting back. For one, don't buy these cereals for your kids.

My kid has never even seen an ad for these products yet (he watches Treehouse--no ads--and they don't plug this crap on adult TV.)