Congratulations, America, on coming up with yet another way to insert an ungodly amount of sugar into your diet. Bonus, it doubles as pet chow for hummingbird breeders.
Free prize in every box: A syringe of insulin!
Ketoers, aren’t you glad you never have to deal with this kind of crap again? It’s like lookin’ back at a cult, ain’t it?
I guess that is catering to the vegan crowd? I think I just had an insulin spike looking at that pic! 
No. Maybe because I am a Hungarian but the cereal craze never touched me. (We eat fatty pork here. Though I was a vegetarian… Oh well. Okay, eggs then, eggs galore, all the time. Yum.)
And even when I tried out some as an adult (I disliked it and stopped), I never ever could have put fruit juice into it. Ew.
My guess is you didn’t raise kids while working full time, but I don’t know so just speculating.
It is the convenience of pouring a bowl of cereal, pouring in milk and in less than a minute you have fed your kids breakfast. Then you put yourself together for your job, drop the kids off at daycare or school and put in 8 hours to earn a paycheck.
eta: and we had no idea how unhealthy it was
No I didn’t but my mom had a kid and no husband, my grandma had 2 kids, no husband and land and cereal just wasn’t a thing so they didn’t use it.
(Actually, I would have been super happy not getting any breakfast 
It wasn’t good for anything at all, only caused problems. It was a slice of bread with something on it, that didn’t take much time either… And didn’t depend on fresh milk. Well okay I could drink 1-2 days old milk but noticed the difference. We had no long lasting milk back then.
I honestly don’t remember if my breakfast had milk. I remember my properly timed meals more, Mom cooked lunch every day. Perks of being a judge who works way more than 8 hours a day but she can do it at night and it’s okay to go home to cook after noon - unless there is a trial or what are they called when it’s not a criminal thing. She mostly did divorces - enter proper English terms here -, I learned so much and heard stories…)
My eggs often take 1 minute too. I love that. Of course we didn’t have induction cookers either, just gas that went out if we released the button, well we used a hack so okay…
I understand things just saying that there are zillion quick options. Why I didn’t get a piece of cold pork roast I wonder. I would have been happier. Oh well.
But my original point was that we simply didn’t HAVE it. It wasn’t an option and it’s good. Not like bread is so great but at least I didn’t try to eat it sweet in the morning and needed protein on it.
When I was a kid in a working home cereal wasn’t allowed. Took a couple minutes for parents to fry an egg and sausage and us kids were on our own to get our own toast from the toaster and pour our own beverages or scoop out some yogurt and granola into a bowl. Everyone sat down at the same table for meals and helped clear it when we were through. We were also responsible for doing our own laundry as soon as we could reach the top of the washing machine and there were weekly inspections as we were responsible for cleaning our rooms, the upper floor, and our bathroom from about the age of 5.
Plain Cheerios were a special treat on Saturday mornings, the one day we were allowed to watch television for longer than an hour (Saturday morning cartoons, you can’t miss that) and closest we ever got to “dessert” was green Jell-O or cheesecake made from tofu (gag).
Junk food may be easier but a reasonably healthy life can be done.
My Aunts and Uncles on my Mother’s side aren’t a lot older than me. I remember my one Uncle pouring OJ on his morning cereal way back in the late 60’s! We were fed a lot of cereal for years.
You had some smart parents… teaching you to do whatever you were big enough to do.
My father actually built me a little stepstool so I could reach the top of that washing machine. Now, I have a stackable washer and dryer that I have to crane my neck awkwardly to see inside (there’s always that one sock stuck to the side of the barrel). Life has come full circle.
We have our 14 year old doing laundry, but haven’t yet gotten the 11 year old to do hers. We’re also trying to teach them to make some of their own meals, but that can be very challenging during school, as the oldest one is running for the bus in the morning, then often gets home, eats dinner, and then goes to dance. We often have to plan ahead to make dinner on those days.
I am the consummate planner. I make all my lunches on the weekend. Before I go to bed, I have my work clothes laid out, my “gym” clothes ready, many times my pre-workout coffee ready. We try to have a few meals ready to go for dinner during the week. If there’s anything for me to do, it’s already in my lunch bag or even in my car or blocking the door, so that I don’t forget it.
I have two degrees in electrical engineering and a law degree, and you have to be prepared to do that. You can’t get through those without a lot of preparation.
We’re about to get a puppy, and my wife is telling me that I’ll be a great dog trainer, and it’s true. I’ll be there every day, without fail, I’ll know what we’ll be training, I’ll have everything ready to go, the time planned out, the place ready, etc. Of course, often things don’t go as planned, but I’m unflappable and will just change whatever I need to change in order to do what I want to do.
Please come to Portland and have a sit down with EVERY SINGLE DOG OWNER OUT HERE because training one’s furry family members is now a relic of the past. The pet care de rigueur seems to be a form of unparenting similar to letting one’s children run screaming through supermarkets and then getting annoyed at people who suggest one exercise a little responsibility.
Cougars, poison oak, ticks the size of grapes–commands and leashes are for Fido’s protection, as well, ya self-entitled weekend warriors! All it takes is dedication, education, and an attention span a little longer than your Labradoodle’s. [end of rant]
I have grown to appreciate order and planning and organizing. And I have become good at most of those. Which is hilarious because I was quite the opposite for most of my life.
All it takes is a bit of advance planning, and you, too, can be extemporaneous! 
for me I always said cereal and soda are the 2 worst poisons out there.
that darn ‘convenience’ eating lifestyle humans have made thru work and stress and more just defaults to this so many times as we all know.
I bet it sells well…omg, ugh
I so loved reading this post, @Aqua_chonk !
I grew up in the era of low fat -no fat - cholesterol is bad… BUT, My mother, bless her heart, was also VERY anti-sugar. The cereals in our house were plain Cheerios, Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies and All-Bran. We had the option of “mixing it up” by adding some Kretschmer Wheat Germ. IF we got any kind of sweetener - it was raw honey from my uncle. We did get eggs once in a great while though. But never butter. Always margerine. ugh. From time to time, Daddy used to announce "Bread is the Staff of Life…and we’d sit and eat toast or sandwiches. He LOVED bread. My stomach hurts just thinking about it!
We were also task with a pretty hefty list of household chores, including laundry–wash, hang outside, fold, put away…, polishing shoes, lawn mowing, picking produce at local farm and processing/canning/freezing, (We got weekly room inspections too!) , in addition to all the normal stuff like washing dishes and setting the table. Never a dull moment. And that was life in the city.
Now that we live in the country, on a farm, all that kind of work just seems normal. Raised our kids that way, and now pretty much every kind of really physical chore is easy for them. Instead of cereal, though, I taught them to make eggs and toast, and how to make butter. By the time they were 8 years old, they could cook eggs and toast by themselves. (I always checked to make sure they stove got turned off—lol). They’ve become a pretty resourceful bunch. The favorite past time is stream fishing…they catch, filet and cook. Or with deer, they hunt, gut and butcher. The oldest daughter learned how to make venison jerky and summer sausage - and that’s what we get for Chistmas now. I’m SO happy for them.
Yes, they do enjoy a bit of junk food. But they (and us) find it way more satisfying to source out our food and do as much as we can from scratch.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane!
