Paper Bowls!
-PJ
Posted on 02/24/2016 6:51:52 AM PST by dennisw
Few things are as painless to prepare as cereal. Making it requires little more than pouring something (a cereal of your choice) into a bowl and then pouring something else (a milk of your choice) into the same bowl. Eating it requires little more than a spoon and your mouth. The food, which Americans still buy $10 billion of annually, has thrived over the decades, at least in part, because of this very quality: Its convenience.
And yet, for today's youth, cereal isn't easy enough.
On Monday, the New York Times published a story about the breakfast favorite, and the most disconcerting part was this:
Almost 40 percent of the millennials surveyed by Mintel for its 2015 report said cereal was an inconvenient breakfast choice because they had to clean up after eating it.
The industry, the piece explained, is struggling -- sales have tumbled by almost 30 percent over the past 15 years, and the future remains uncertain. And the reasons are largely those one would expect: Many people are eating breakfast away from the home, choosing breakfast sandwiches and yogurt instead of more traditional morning staples. Many others, meanwhile, too busy to pay attention to their stomachs, are eating breakfast not at all.
But there is another thing happening, which should scare cereal makers -- and, really, anyone who has a stake in this country's future -- more: A large contingent of millennials are uninterested in breakfast cereal because eating it means using a bowl, and bowls don't clean themselves (or get tossed in the garbage). Bowls, kids these days groan, have to be cleaned.
"Convenience is the one thing that's really changing trends these days," Howard Telford, an industry analyst at market research firm Euromonitor, said last year.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
It depends on what you eat. I get All Bran and add local honey to it.
After cereal, one should always have a health bowl movement...
I remember those single serving boxes when I was a kid - I thought they were very cool.
Guess I didn't get out much, now that I think of it.
Cereal is nasty to me.
I prefer scrambled eggs with Creole seasoning and Cayenne pepper.
They should hold their breath until it gets better for them.
One of the homework assignments young engineers are given in scheduling class is to detail all the steps of making a peanut butter & jelly sandwich. When you have to list every single step, in order, there really are an awful lot of steps to making a PB&J.
Damn, now I REALLY want a PB&J with about a half inch thick slab of chunky peanut butter and really cold milk.
Today’s “cereal” may as well be labeled as candy....Cereal just makes me hungry. ..including real oatmeal. An organic, uncured, grass-fed hotdog for me. Don’t even have to cook it...add a piece of cheese or half an avocado. Yum..and good to go for hours.
Plastic silverware!
I remember those boxes of cereal! You buy a variety pack of maybe 10 or 12 small boxes (seems like they always included some Special K or other undesirable kinds, and we fought for the sugar-coated ones). The box was perforated, as I recall, and it could be used as a bowl. More often, we just ate the cereal and had a glass of milk. I guess that still leaves a pesky glass to clean. Turns out we have a dishwasher right next to the sink.... too much trouble to put a glass in there, I guess.
Snowflakes.
Rice Crispie Treats. The perfect cereal. ;-)
[Reminds me of the first time I saw pre-made PB&J in the store - apparently opening TWO SEPERATE jars and scooping the contents onto a piece of bread was just too damned hard for some people.... ]
Goober Grape was the pre-cursor to pre-made sandwiches....
[At $4.50 for a box of carbs it is hardly a economically reasonable investment.]
That’s why I stick to the locate supermarket brand. Same stuff, different box.
Scheduling class? Is that a thing?
Industrial engineering, I guess.
The funny (not HA HA funny) thing is that I have 3 tween/teen kids. They moan and complain when I ask them to put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher rather than leaving them in the sink.
But they love cereal!
Of course, since they can operate a laptop, cell phone, tablet, etc. I’ve also stopped doing their laundry. They can run washer, dryer, and fold/hand up their own clothes. I can’t do mine, my wife’s, and theirs — it’s just too much on top of my “day” job an hour away.
It’s taken some time, and there’s still more progress to be made, but they WILL take care of themselves.
Haven’t had cereal in a while...But I do like Raisin Bran and Shredded Wheat. Need to pick some up!
But that isn’t the Breakfast of Champions.
What is?
Two grilled cheese sandwiches and a can of Dr. Pepper (had that yesterday). (Insert Homer Simpson drooling noise)
Quite the opposite. Cereals are so bland today and mostly cellulose filler (I miss my Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs from days past and get that whole grain BS outta here)
Also, no group of food has suffered downsizing inflation more. That 16oz box for $3 eight years ago is now 12.452oz and falling daily.
I like cereal, but as I’ve gotten older my tolerance for carbs in the morning has gone down. Think it’s hypoglycemic? Anyway can’t really take anything with carbs before 11 or so. Proteins ok though - which means its either eggs/sausage for breakfast or I skip. Most days it’s just coffee. I know not very healthy, but I eat a moderate lunch and dinner. Have still managed to gain 20 pounds over the past 5 years....i think that’s the whiskey :)
Paper Bowls!
-PJ
They’ve had the little square boxes since I was a kid. It’s not quite rocket science but it works.
It’s part of a bigger class. I think Engineering economics. We learned all about Gantt charts, Critical Path Method scheduling (developed by the navy for construction of nuclear submarines,) and that sort of stuff. As you surely know, schedule is a very, very important aspect of construction.
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