What's one of the few foods you can eat at any hour,
for every meal, and pretty much never be judged for it?
Delicious, delectable breakfast cereal.
But it wasn't always the breakfast candy we know today.
Can you believe breakfast cereal actually started as a health food?
Our 400-calorie bowls of Lucky Charms are a far cry
from cereal's humble beginnings.
In the 1860s, people are eating like crap and feeling like it as a result.
All that pork, whiskey, and coffee led to some serious constipation.
Enter: cereal.
A guy named Dr. James Caleb Jackson started a 'water spa' to get people back in shape,
with water diets, food restrictions, exercise, and cereal.
Jackson invented the first cereal when he baked
graham flour with water to get rock hard wheat bricks.
Granula was born.
Granula was so hard, you literally had to soak it in milk
overnight in order to eat it without breaking your teeth.
For obvious reasons, it didn't really catch on with the public
But it inspired other health nuts to hop on the cereal train.
A guy named John Harvey Kellogg,
(Yes, that Kellogg)
sort of ripped off the granula recipe and invented his own version.
He named his cereal 'granola'.
Very original.
Here's where things get weird.
Kellogg actually created cereal as a way to get people to stop jacking off.
Ugh.
He was kind of of a religious nut, and he thought a bland diet was the key to purity.
Hence, all the bran.
Kellogg ended up creating the first cereal flake in 1896.
His flakes had the marketing slogan 'Enrich the blood' on the box.
Which honestly sounds extremely weird, but people were surprisingly into it back then.
Flakes might be one of the least exciting varieties of cereal,
but you've got to give them credit for their staying power.
Mm, they are kind of good.
Post cereal came along in 1897 with the debut of Grape Nuts.
Post is still around today,
and of course, Grape Nuts are a fan favorite among the older crowd.
Post Grape Nuts is the cereal we always keep on hand.
But who cares about bran? What about the sugar?
The first sweetened cereal, Ranger Joe Popped Wheat Honnies,
debuted in 1939.
The great American cereal Renaissance had begun.
After that, sugar cereal just became the norm in American households,
instead of the weird wheat bricks and bran flakes from before.
Even though that stuff was still out there.
And for some reason, still exists today.
Cereal companies started doing product placement in kids cartoons
to really reel them in while they're young.
There were entire storylines around breakfast cereal.
'It's not crisp like the kind my breakfast pals serve dad and me at home!'
I'm Snap! I'm Crackle! I'm Pop!
Kids back in the day were basically watching cereal short films.
-Dennis, what's so funny? -Morning Funnies Cereal, Mr. Wilson!
And just like that, a nationwide obsession was born.
The 50s was the decade of cereal classics.
I'm talking Trix, Frosted Flakes, Cocoa Puffs, and all their lovable mascots.
And hot on their tail, some true American icons.
Cap'n Crunch, Lucky Charms, Cocoa Pebbles. I dare you to name better cereals.
I'll see you in the comments.
Oh, and fun fact! Lucky charms started out as
basically Cheerios with those circus peanut things in them.
Oh, how far we've come.
Cold cereal was officially the anchor of the breakfast table.
A Saturday morning staple with a side of cartoons.
Cereal boxes were their own babysitter with entire coloring books on them.
This is actually really hard.
Free toys inside, friendly mascots like Tony the Tiger.
These brands were one step away from giving away free puppies with every bowl.
But, all good things must come to an end, even our nation's reckless obsession with cereal.
In the 70s, people started to question how good for you a bowl of sugar-coated carbs really was.
It was the era of the Atkins diet and carbs were
basically evil incarnate.
But, for a little while longer most people still didn't seem to care
about the havoc cereal might have been wreaking on our heath.
The number of different types of breakfast cereals in the U.S. grew from
160 in 1970 to 340 in 1998.
Cereal consumption endured through the 90s
through Y2K, even into the early 2000s.
But it's been on a pretty steady decline in recent years.
Despite the fact that there are incredible cereal creations on the market today,
Like Reese's Puffs, Oreo O's, Waffle Crisp.
Come on.
Sadly, cereal culture might never return to its former glory.
But, we'll always have Tony the Tiger.
Oh, no? He's not on TV anymore?
But we'll always have oatmeal.
Anybody for a bowl of Cap'nCrunch?