According to Hofmann: Cereal boxing
If I invented a cereal that I knew was going to sell like gangbusters, I think I’d name it “Delicious Sweetened Whole-Grain Gluten Free Fiber Main Ingredient”…or maybe “Gangbusters.”
That realization came to me during the routine of breakfast preparation for my stepdaughter. It begins by me asking her if she’s ready for breakfast, her saying “no” and then, as I’m about to go outside to set booby traps around my mailbox, she tells me she’s hungry.
I then ask her what she wants for breakfast, but she doesn’t know. I start naming breakfast foods that she now says are gross despite the fact she etched those items on our grocery list a week prior in thick red crayon.
The next step is her demanding specific foods and throwing a fit when I inform her that I don’t know how to make Eggs Benedict and even if I did, we didn’t have eggs…or a Benedict.
It all gets somewhat repetitive from that point, so I’ll fast forward 45 minutes to me yelling that she’ll eat cereal, I’ll pour water in it instead of milk, and she’ll eat it and like it.
After that, you kinda feel like drinking a glass of bourbon, but it’s the morning, so you settle for beer, which has whole grains in it, too, right?
But as I dumped the cereal in the bowl, my increasing double vision noticed there were a lot of words crammed onto the front of the package–more so than I ever remember Count Chocula or Cap’n Crunch ever having back in the day.
I looked on the flipside of the box and what I found was simply amazing…there were fewer words on the back!
When your world is shaken like that, you have to act fast and make sure you didn’t enter some bizarro world where up is down and sideways is … well, the other way sideways, I guess.
After checking the news and seeing that the world was still insane, my attention returned to the front of the cereal box.
The first selling point was whole-grain oats followed by the assurance it’s gluten free, it has fiber, can help lower cholesterol, no artificial colors, fiber, no artificial flavors, no saturated fats, fiber, fiber, no unsaturated fats, no trans fats, no chewing the fats and no Fats Domino, but it has fiber.
They (the cereal people) do that because they (the cereal people) know that’s what they (the consumers) are looking for. They (the consumer) are so preoccupied in the store looking for the ultimate healthy cereal, they (the cereal people consumers) don’t even know what they (the concerealsumer) are buying.
“Look, honey, this cereal says it will make your colon stronger than the Incredible Hulk!”
“Wow! What’s it called?”
“Booger Crisps — oh, look! It’s doctor recommended…and it has fiber!”
Those healthy, natural claims all look well and good, but if you really read the phrasing, it becomes suspicious.
For example, the cereal box had the line, “No artificial flavors,” but the line below that reads, “No colors from artificial sources.”
That disturbed me to the point where I was dwelling over what an artificial color source was when the cereal itself was brown, and then I started obsessing on what the cereal’s original color could possibly be to the point where I neglected daily routines like bathing, yodeling and setting booby traps around my mailbox.
Also, the cereal makes itself out to be darn-near heart medication as I saw a heart image on the front of the package with words inside claiming the cereal can “help lower cholesterol.”
Yes, much like I tell friends that I’ll “help” them move, but show up for the coffee and donuts for the morning shift and pizza and beer for the afternoon shift and find a way to supervise without suffering the burden of heavy lifting.
They (the cereal killers) also brag about whole-grain oats being the first ingredient like they (you know who they are) just won the whole-grain-oat-main-ingredient Olympics.
It’s true that whole-grain oats are the first ingredient, but when you check the oh-so boring and small-print nutrition facts on the side of the box, you find the second ingredient is sugar, the fifth ingredient is corn syrup, the ninth ingredient is refiner’s syrup and the seventeenth ingredient is residual sugar in the industrial air filters from Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.
So, bragging about whole-grain oats as your first ingredient is like telling a dentist about your perfect, healthy front incisors and canines, but your molars and wisdom teeth are blacken sacks of rotted sawdust hanging by a thread from eating cereal containing nine different sugars.
Knowing that, I think you’re better off not reading anything on the box and eating the free toy inside or maybe eating the box itself. I hear both are good sources of fiber.
According to Hofmann is written by staff reporter Mark Hofmann of Belle Vernon. Watch Mark’s video series at heraldstandard.com and YouTube. Like and follow him on Facebook and Twitter.