- Key People:
- John Harvey Kellogg
- C.W. Post
- W. K. Kellogg
breakfast cereal
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What is breakfast cereal?
Breakfast cereal is a grain-based food that is usually precooked or ready-to-eat. It is commonly eaten with milk or cream for breakfast in the United States and elsewhere, and it is often sweetened with sugar, syrup, or fruit.
Ready-to-eat breakfast cereals come in four basic types: flaked, puffed, shredded, and granular. After the cereal is processed into one of these forms, it is often treated to restore vitamins lost during cooking and coated with sweet flavoring.
The modern commercial concept of cereal originated in the 1860s. The market for ready-to-eat breakfast cereal grew rapidly from the mid- to late 1950s through skillful product diversification and promotion.
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What are some common types of breakfast cereal?
Breakfast cereals come in various forms, with flaked cereals being the most popular. These are made from grains like corn, wheat, or rice, which are broken into grits, cooked with flavorings, and pressed into flakes.
Other types include puffed cereals, made by expanding cooked grains, and shredded cereals, consisting of strands cut into biscuits. Granular cereals are made from fermented dough crumbled and rebaked.
Many cereals are enriched with vitamins and often coated with sweet flavorings. Some, like oatmeal and farina, require cooking, but "instant" forms are also available. Breakfast cereals have evolved to include health-focused options made from whole grains and fruit.
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How is breakfast cereal usually made?
Breakfast cereals are commonly made from grains like corn, wheat, or rice. The grains are often broken into grits, cooked with flavorings and syrups, and then processed into different forms.
Flaked cereals are made by pressing the cooked grains between cooled rollers to create flakes. These flakes are then toasted to achieve the desired crispness and dehydrated to reduce the moisture content.
Puffed cereals involve heating the cereal in a pressure chamber and then suddenly releasing the pressure, causing the grains to expand rapidly.
Shredded cereals are produced by pressure-cooking wheat, squeezing it into strands with heavy rollers, cutting it into biscuits, and then drying.
After these processes, cereals are often enriched with vitamins and minerals to restore nutrients lost during cooking. Sweet flavorings may also be added.
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Why do people eat breakfast cereal in the morning?
People eat breakfast cereal in the morning because it is a convenient and easy-to-prepare food. Ready-to-eat cereals are made in flaked, puffed, shredded, and granular forms. Roasting cereals gelatinizes the starch, which ensures product stability and good shelf life. Breakfast cereals are often sweetened with sugar, syrup, or fruit. They are also fortified with vitamins.
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What ingredients are often found in breakfast cereals?
Breakfast cereals often contain grains like wheat, rice, and corn. They are frequently sweetened with sugar, syrup, or fruit and enriched with vitamins and minerals to improve their nutritional value. Some cereals may also include salt, yeast, and malted barley flour.
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How can breakfast cereals affect a person's health?
Breakfast cereals, a popular grain food typically eaten with milk, can impact health in various ways. Many breakfast cereals undergo processing that may lead to the loss of essential vitamins. To compensate for this, manufacturers often enrich cereals with minerals and vitamins after processing. Some cereals have high sugar content to appeal to children, while others emphasize whole grains and fruit. Consumers purchased approximately 2.7 billion boxes of cereal each year in the first decade of the 21st century.
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breakfast cereal, grain food, usually precooked or ready-to-eat, that is customarily eaten with milk or cream for breakfast in the United States and elsewhere, often sweetened with sugar, syrup, or fruit.
Ready-to-eat breakfast cereals are of four basic types: flaked, made from corn, wheat, or rice that has been broken down into grits, cooked with flavors and syrups, and then pressed into flakes between cooled rollers; puffed, made by exploding cooked wheat or rice from a pressure chamber, thus expanding the grain to several times its original size; shredded, made from pressure-cooked wheat that is squeezed into strands by heavy rollers, then cut into biscuits and dried; and granular, made by a process in which a stiff dough made from wheat and malted barley flour, salt, yeast, and water is fermented, is baked thoroughly, and then, after being crumbled and rebaked, is ground into rough bits. As a final step in each process, the cereal is treated to restore vitamins lost through cooking and is often coated with sweet flavoring.
The modern commercial concept of cereal food originated in the 1860s, when James Caleb Jackson, who operated a medical sanitarium in New York, made a dried graham flour mixture known as granula. Although granula could be broken to form small pieces, it was very hard; Jackson found that soaking the mixture in milk, however, rendered it edible. Shortly thereafter the entrepreneurial possibilities of the thin-baked, ground cereal served to the sanitariumās patients inspired W.K. Kellogg, who ran a sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, to develop a similar product. C.W. Post, a patient at the Battle Creek sanitarium who also worked in the kitchen there, learned of Kelloggās recipe and in 1897 invented Grape-Nuts, a crunchy breakfast cereal consisting of flour, salt, and yeast, which was baked in a sheet and broken into bits by putting it through a coffee grinder. About that same time, Kellogg invented cornflakes, which became a very popular breakfast cereal.
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Until the mid- to late 1950s, the market for ready-to-eat breakfast cereal was relatively small, making its subsequent rapid growth one of the most dramatic success stories in modern advertising. By skillful product diversification and promotion, ready-to-eat products took over the breakfast food market. Children found a prize in every package or associated a cereal with their favorite cartoon characters, while their parents, ever reminded of the convenience and the nutritional value of fortified cereals, could enter manufacturer-sponsored contests for prizes of their own.
Late in the 20th century, the majority of breakfast cereals continued to be directed toward the childrenās market, with entertainment-oriented packaging and a wide variety of ātreatā flavors. Alongside these, the so-called health food movement fosteredāor revivedācereals composed of ānaturalā whole grain and fruit. These cereals became increasingly popular in the early 21st century.
In the 1990s the ready-to-eat breakfast cereal industry sold the equivalent of several billion bowls of cereal to Americans yearly, having far surpassed the market for the traditional āhotā cereals made from rolled oats or enriched wheat farina. Breakfast cereals remained popular in the early 2000s. In the first decade of the 21st century, Americans bought about 2.7 billion boxes of cereal each year.