# Do rats eating cereal box cardboard live longer than rats eating cereal? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 20, 2011, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-rats-eating-cereal-box-cardboard-live-longer-than-rats-eating-cereal/582556 "2011-05-20T12:08:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![duffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duffer/32/1026_2.png) [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-rats-eating-cereal-box-cardboard-live-longer-than-rats-eating-cereal/582556/21 "2011-05-21T00:03:17Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Anyway, _why_ would someone, anyone, carry out a study that involves feeding rats on shredded cardboard? The assertion is ridiculous in its very face. Well, because they were able to get funding. You know that. The rats were nesting. Same reason a bird will pick up random prices of crap. There. Study complete. Where’s my check? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-rats-eating-cereal-box-cardboard-live-longer-than-rats-eating-cereal/582556/22 "2011-05-21T00:07:55Z")
I don’t believe any such experiment ever took place in earnest. That’s even simpler - the thing is a figment of the imagination of the same kind of dribbling stupid that claims food X is ‘one molecule away from’ poison Y ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-rats-eating-cereal-box-cardboard-live-longer-than-rats-eating-cereal/582556/23 "2011-05-21T00:09:24Z")
If there’s any grain of truth at all to this (which I doubt to begin with), it might, _might_, be that rats fed a combination of cereal and a little bit of cardboard were healthier than the ones just eating cereal. They still wouldn’t get any nutrition from it, but they’d at least get some fiber. Or, more likely, it’s just completely fabricated from start to finish. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-rats-eating-cereal-box-cardboard-live-longer-than-rats-eating-cereal/582556/24 "2011-05-21T00:57:57Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Or, more likely, it’s just completely fabricated from start to finish. I suspect this is the case. As a kid, I was told the same story right along side other gems of nutritional science such as how ducks would starve if I fed them white bread\*. Apparently, they’d fill up on the bread and not eat anything nutritious; eventually, they’d die of starvation while surrounded by food. Squirrels, geese and pigeons were also being starved by over-consumption of white bread. In regards to the cereal story: the truth is that even sugary cereals are some of the healthiest things kids eat all day long. The addition of fiber is relatively recent, but cereals have been fortified with all kinds of things for decades. - Just for the record: I had no white bread or sugary cereals. When I was a kid, we made our own granola and multigrain bread. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-rats-eating-cereal-box-cardboard-live-longer-than-rats-eating-cereal/582556/25 "2011-05-21T06:41:00Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > I suspect this is the case. > > As a kid, I was told the same story right along side other gems of nutritional science such as how ducks would starve if I fed them white bread\*. Apparently, they’d fill up on the bread and not eat anything nutritious; eventually, they’d die of starvation while surrounded by food. Squirrels, geese and pigeons were also being starved by over-consumption of white bread. It’s true that white bread is not a very good food for ducks and when they eat a lot of it all the time, they can suffer digestive poroblems and dietary deficiencies, but keith of those things are the same as actually starving. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-rats-eating-cereal-box-cardboard-live-longer-than-rats-eating-cereal/582556/26 "2011-05-21T07:50:14Z")
Gah. Blerdy autocorrect. Keith=neither ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-rats-eating-cereal-box-cardboard-live-longer-than-rats-eating-cereal/582556/27 "2011-05-21T09:25:28Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I don’t. Think it really matters how you slice it. It cannot ever have been true that rats in an experiment lived longer on cardboard than on breakfast cereal. No matter how contemptibly over-processed the product, it’s starchy, sugary calories - as opposed to cardboard, which is fibrous non-food. Who knows, maybe cardboard was more nutritious back then. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_of\_Lucan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dbc845/32.png) [@Michael\_of\_Lucan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_of_Lucan)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-rats-eating-cereal-box-cardboard-live-longer-than-rats-eating-cereal/582556/28 "2011-05-21T14:23:30Z")
I should perhaps stress that I am not validating the existence of the rat test. I am confirming that the story definitely dates back about three decades, and was discussed then in the better newspapers, as a genuine test result. I certainly understood at the time that these were genuine reports from the context of discussion. Adding vitamins and minerals to processed cereal (as a normal practice) appears to me to date from around that time. Certainly, that does not prove that the alleged test occurred. However, it indicates that concerns had arisen about the lack of nutrients in some cereals, and the alleged test (or something similar to it) may have heightened those concerns. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-rats-eating-cereal-box-cardboard-live-longer-than-rats-eating-cereal/582556/29 "2011-05-21T14:34:23Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > I believe there was a study that concluded that underfed mice lived longer. From [Wikipedia:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restriction#Rodents) > [@](#): > > Seventy years ago, McCay CM, et al., discovered that reducing the amount of calories fed to rodents nearly doubled their lifespans. The life extension was varied for each species but on average, there was a 30-40% increase in lifespan in both mice and rats.[43] CR preserves a range of structural and functional parameters in aging rodents. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-rats-eating-cereal-box-cardboard-live-longer-than-rats-eating-cereal/582556/30 "2011-05-21T15:45:18Z")
Part of the problem here is that the term ‘nutrition’ means different.things to different people. To some, it’s talking about the food energy.value of something. - by which measure, cereals have alelways been nutritious. but to others it’s talking about a proper balance of all dietary requirements, in which case cereals will never (on their own) qualify. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-rats-eating-cereal-box-cardboard-live-longer-than-rats-eating-cereal/582556/31 "2011-05-21T19:40:37Z")
I can confirm that I have also heard the story (and, to my shame, repeated it) in more or less the form that **Michael of Lucan** tells it and, (although memory on the point is hazy) probably first heard it in or around the '70s, as he says. I never really thought that much about it before, but now I apply my SDMB honed critical faculties to the story I realize that it does sound much more like urban legend than fact. ---
**Author:** ![emmablue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19b73/32.png) [@emmablue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emmablue)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-rats-eating-cereal-box-cardboard-live-longer-than-rats-eating-cereal/582556/32 "2011-12-15T17:51:14Z")
It is a real study. This is the link to a PDF that quotes the study with cornflakes: [http://www.baumancollege.org/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=5704.0;attach=2778](http://www.baumancollege.org/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=5704.0;attach=2778) I can’t believe people eat cereal for breakfast and think it’s healthy! You are hungry 30 minutes later!!! ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-rats-eating-cereal-box-cardboard-live-longer-than-rats-eating-cereal/582556/33 "2011-12-15T17:55:33Z")
Do you have a link to the actual study? Because I don’t think it is a real study. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-rats-eating-cereal-box-cardboard-live-longer-than-rats-eating-cereal/582556/34 "2011-12-15T18:03:46Z")
> [@emmablue](#): > > It is a real study. This is the link to a PDF that quotes the study with cornflakes: … Do you have a cite for the journal article that the “real study” was published in? (Hint: a cookbook is not a scholarly source.) ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-rats-eating-cereal-box-cardboard-live-longer-than-rats-eating-cereal/582556/35 "2011-12-15T18:40:32Z")
The PDF says that the study is described in Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. That book is available at Amazon. If you search for it there, and then use Look Inside! at pages 468-9, you’ll see this mention of the study (I’ve left out the middle portion where the study is described), “In 1960, researchers at Ann Arbor University performed an interesting experiment on laboratory rats. . . . The startling conclusion of this study is that there is more nourishment in the box that cold breakfast cereals come in than in the cereals themselves. Loren Zanier, designer of the experiment, actually proposed the protocol as a joke. But the results are far from funny. They were never published and similar studies have not been repeated. If consumers knew the truth about breakfast cereals, vast fortunes would be jeopardized. SWF” I doubt the results for several reasons. First, the cookbook mentions Ann Arbor University. Probably she meant the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, but if so, that’s really sloppy. Second, she says that the study results were never published. ---
**Author:** ![Turek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/turek/32/18782_2.png) [@Turek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turek)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-rats-eating-cereal-box-cardboard-live-longer-than-rats-eating-cereal/582556/36 "2011-12-15T18:49:48Z")
Plus, even if it was valid, it’s 51 years old. Box \*and \*cereal technology have come a long way since then. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-rats-eating-cereal-box-cardboard-live-longer-than-rats-eating-cereal/582556/37 "2011-12-15T19:09:44Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > … Loren Zanier, designer of the experiment, … Is that the same Loren Zanier as the one who sells what he calls [“Ideally Structured Water”](http://www.biovitale.com/hydrazen/)? ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-rats-eating-cereal-box-cardboard-live-longer-than-rats-eating-cereal/582556/38 "2011-12-15T20:42:59Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > The PDF says that the study is described in Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. That book is available at Amazon. If you search for it there, and then use Look Inside! at pages 468-9, you’ll see this mention of the study (I’ve left out the middle portion where the study is described), “In 1960, researchers at Ann Arbor University performed an interesting experiment on laboratory rats. . . . The startling conclusion of this study is that there is more nourishment in the box that cold breakfast cereals come in than in the cereals themselves. Loren Zanier, designer of the experiment, actually proposed the protocol as a joke. But the results are far from funny. They were never published and similar studies have not been repeated. If consumers knew the truth about breakfast cereals, vast fortunes would be jeopardized. SWF” > > I doubt the results for several reasons. First, the cookbook mentions Ann Arbor University. Probably she meant the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, but if so, that’s really sloppy. Second, she says that the study results were never published. Never published??? Probably because the results were so horrifying! I had heard the same thing in the 70s. I am quite certain that it was told to me by the same person who told me where to pick up that Corvette for $400 dollars. You know the one: the owner of it killed himself in it, and he was out in the desert… hh ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-rats-eating-cereal-box-cardboard-live-longer-than-rats-eating-cereal/582556/39 "2011-12-15T21:42:26Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > Is that the same Loren Zanier as the one who sells what he calls [“Ideally Structured Water”](http://www.biovitale.com/hydrazen/)? Zanier by name… ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-rats-eating-cereal-box-cardboard-live-longer-than-rats-eating-cereal/582556/40 "2011-12-15T22:18:26Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Anyway, _why_ would someone, anyone, carry out a study that involves feeding rats on shredded cardboard? The assertion is ridiculous in its very face. Not to mention cruel (not that that has stopped lots of other experiments, mind you). But don’t some animals survive on things like bark and tree leaves? So wouldn’t that be nutritionally in the same at least ballpark as cardboard? (I seriously don’t know the answer, which is why I’m asking). It would seem if that’s the case then some animals might survive (though not thrive, surely) on cardboard. I don’t think rats are one of those, however… > [@Arkcon](#): > > Cute concept, but unlikely. Rats definitely crave sweets, I once saw a mouse steal a Rolo\* and drag it back to its home in the wall, behind a whole wall of shelving. You could hear the clonks and bonks as this tiny mouse maneuvered the giant (to him) Rolo all the way back there We found the glob of caramel a few days later with all the chocolate eaten off. Conclusion? Mice are chocoholics but don’t like caramel. \*for those in foreign lands that may not carry it, it’s a sort of cylindrical bit of caramel coated in chocolate. They come individually wrapped in foil, stacked into tubes. I can definitely see rats doing very poorly on sugary cereals though I haven’t read any studies. I can’t possibly imagine them doing better on cardboard, however. Unless it was magically infused special cardboard with vitamins and nutrients in it.\* \*what is the differene between a vitamin and a nutrient? I guess I’ve always considered vitamins a subset of “nutrients” but wonders what makes them a class of their own… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-rats-eating-cereal-box-cardboard-live-longer-than-rats-eating-cereal/582556.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-rats-eating-cereal-box-cardboard-live-longer-than-rats-eating-cereal/582556.md?page=3)