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Thursday, December 22, 2016

The Great Cereal Controversy

I read an article the other day that said cereal sales are down because millennials believe it's too much work to clean a cereal bowl. This is an old article, so clearly I wasn't paying attention at the time. There is a counter-article that says laziness is not why millennials are avoiding cereal and a third article that kind of takes the middle ground.

However, even the article in the middle shows that 39% of millennials agreed with the statement that "Cereal is inconvenient because I have to clean the dishes after preparing it." In contrast, 17% of Gen Xers agreed with the statement and 10% of baby boomers. So seriously, double the number of millennials as compared to gen X find rinsing a cereal bowl to be too inconvenient to bother with. This amazes me to no end.

I'm as lazy as they come when it involves preparing food. I loathe cooking with the fire of a thousand suns. In fact, when I do cook, my food frequently looks as if it was cooked with the heat of a thousand suns. ::blush:: I get bored, wander away and things get burned.

But despite my immense hatred of food prep, cereal is one of my go-to meals. You pour it in a bowl, add milk, and ta-da! Dinner! Afterward, I run some water on the bowl and put it in the dishwasher.

One of these three articles, I can't remember which now, says that no, millennials aren't lazy. They're trying to eat healthier than a bowl full of sugary cereal. (Um, dudes, there are plenty of non-sweetened cereals out there. I don't eat sugared cereal at all.) Healthy apparently means breakfast sandwiches and cites the popularity of McDonald's all-day breakfast. I'm sorry, but if you're eating a breakfast sandwich from a fast food restaurant, health is not your priority. Convenience is.

I'm all for convenience--see my earlier paragraph about hating to cook--but how is waiting in line for a fast food breakfast sandwich more convenient than cereal? I've seen the line at the drive thrus on my way to work. I literally could pour my cereal, eat it, and rinse the bowl before a car at the back of the line makes it to the front.

Anyway, I don't have a dog in this fight. I don't work in the food/cereal industry and I understand culinary laziness, but I am astonished by that anyone, let alone 39% of an age group, found cereal for breakfast to be too much work. Apparently, some eat cereal for a snack, but there we go back to sugar again. It has to be sugar because no one is going to eat bran flakes for a snack. I remain flabbergasted.