Cereal

Cereal is a breakfast food served either in cold form with milk or cooked as a hot meal. Cereal consists of repackaged food items in flake form or small pieces sometimes accompanied by dried fruit or sweetened items like marshmallows. Many people start the day with a bowl of their favorite cold breakfast cereal. Breakfast cereal was first developed as a way to get more fiber into the average person's diet. Before the advent of breakfast cereals in the late 1800s, most people's breakfast consisted of eggs and meat, with little in the way of fiber to help digestion.http://www.fitnessandfreebies.com/health/cereal.html

James Caleb Jackson gets credit for inventing the first breakfast cereal, called Granula. Ganula was made from sheets of baked graham flour broken into smaller pieces and rebaked. Shortly after, brothers John Harvey and Will Kellogg invented the wheat flake and the corn flake and founded the Kellogg Company. Around the same time, Charles William Post invented Grape Nuts.http://www.foodreference.com/html/artgranola.html In 1877, Quaker Oats came on the cereal scene and became a trademark of breakfast.http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/food/2010/02/02/thinking-outside-the-cereal-box/

Depending on the type of cereal preferred it can either be a cold dish served with milk or a hot breakfast item. Cold cereals are generally poured from the box and topped with cold milk before eating. Sliced fruit can be added such as bananas or raisins and nuts may be included. Cold cereal can also be consumed as a dry snack item. Hot cereals like oatmeal or cream of wheat may be served with additional toppings or condiments like butter, sugar, honey, fruits or syrups. Raisins, nuts, and brown sugar are a common oatmeal combination of toppings. Hot cereals are available in packaged varieties as instant meals and come in a variety of flavors. Dry prepackaged cereals and oats can be used in cereal recipes for snacks, cookies, or trail mixes.

The mascots of cereals are just as beloved as the cereals themselves. Some popular ones are:

1. Frosted Flakes: Tony the Tiger
2. Rice Krispies: Snap, Crackle and Pop
3. Cap'n Crunch: Cap'n Crunch
4. Trix: Rabbit
5. Lucky Charms: Lucky the Leprechaun