# Is "eat your Wheaties" a meaningful phrase to you? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 11, 2010, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-eat-your-wheaties-a-meaningful-phrase-to-you/560312 "2010-11-11T15:17:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2010, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-eat-your-wheaties-a-meaningful-phrase-to-you/560312/21 "2010-11-11T18:37:22Z")
I’m 61, and I saw ads when I was a kid that implied Wheaties would give you strength. At that time, Cheerios was making a similar pitch, “He’s feeling his Cheerios.” Wheaties still has current athletes on the box. The last ad I remember with somebody saying “You better eat your Wheaties!” was retiree Michael Jordan. ---
**Author:** ![swampbear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/swampbear/32/467_2.png) [@swampbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampbear)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2010, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-eat-your-wheaties-a-meaningful-phrase-to-you/560312/22 "2010-11-11T19:41:49Z")
> [@Rhiannon8404](#): > > Definitely. I even use the phrase. After all, it’s the Breakfast of Champions. I’ve always heard a martini is the breakfast of champions. 😃 I know it well **Twicks**. Then again I am also an Olde Pharte. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2010, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-eat-your-wheaties-a-meaningful-phrase-to-you/560312/23 "2010-11-11T20:06:56Z")
Yeah, it’s a marketing catchphrase for cereal, usually uttered by whatever pro athlete they’ve hired to shill for them that week. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2010, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-eat-your-wheaties-a-meaningful-phrase-to-you/560312/24 "2010-11-11T20:09:51Z")
Is “eat your Wheaties” a meaningful phrase? Odd that you would ask, I just used it this morning. > [@tdn](#): > > When you’re slow on the draw and need somethin’ to chaw, I hanker for a hunk o’ cheese. A slab, or slice, or chunk of? ---
**Author:** ![Scubaqueen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c0e974/32.png) [@Scubaqueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scubaqueen)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2010, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-eat-your-wheaties-a-meaningful-phrase-to-you/560312/25 "2010-11-11T20:10:22Z")
> [@swampbear](#): > > I’ve always heard a martini is the breakfast of champions. 😃 > > I know it well **Twicks**. Then again I am also an Olde Pharte. Nah. Yer both wrong. Breakfast of Champions? Cold pizza and warm beer equals college student. Along with those 70s Saturday morning cartoons, of course. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2010, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-eat-your-wheaties-a-meaningful-phrase-to-you/560312/26 "2010-11-11T20:39:06Z")
We’d say it about weetbix which is a different breakfast food altogether but the similarity between the names ensures I’d know what you were talking about. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2010, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-eat-your-wheaties-a-meaningful-phrase-to-you/560312/27 "2010-11-11T20:48:31Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > A slab, or slice, or chunk of? I hanker for a **hunk** of cheese. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2010, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-eat-your-wheaties-a-meaningful-phrase-to-you/560312/28 "2010-11-11T21:55:46Z")
> [@Scubaqueen](#): > > Nah. Yer both wrong. Breakfast of Champions? Cold pizza and warm beer equals college student. Along with those 70s Saturday morning cartoons, of course. 😃 Breakfast of Champions? From the 70s? Why, that would be Little Chocolate Donuts! ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2010, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-eat-your-wheaties-a-meaningful-phrase-to-you/560312/29 "2010-11-11T22:18:36Z")
The slogan started in 1927. [Wheaties.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheaties) > [@](#): > > Wheaties began its association with sports in 1927, through advertising on the southern wall of minor league baseball’s Nicollet Park in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In the contract, Wheaties sponsored the radio broadcasts of the minor league baseball team, Minneapolis Millers, on radio station WCCO and Wheaties was provided with a large billboard in the park to use to introduce new slogans. The first such slogan on the new signboard was penned by Knox Reeves, of a Minneapolis advertising agency. When asked what should be placed on the sign for Wheaties, Reeves sketched a Wheaties box on a pad of paper, thought for a moment, and wrote “Wheaties-The Breakfast of Champions”. Lou Gehrig was the first athlete on the box in 1934 ---
**Author:** ![descamisado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2010, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-eat-your-wheaties-a-meaningful-phrase-to-you/560312/30 "2010-11-11T22:26:30Z")
I remember it from the commercials in the 70s. I also just used it the other day, to a store cashier in reference to the already burgeoning holiday shopping crowd, “You better make sure to eat your Wheaties.” She appeared to be around 30 and understood what I meant. ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2010, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-eat-your-wheaties-a-meaningful-phrase-to-you/560312/31 "2010-11-11T23:24:29Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > “Pret-ty sneaky, sis!” (not a cereal commercial, but one that stuck with me). [I’ll be damned, there’s an Onion article for everything.](http://www.theonion.com/articles/connect-fourplaying-sis-pretty-sneaky,4167/) ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-eat-your-wheaties-a-meaningful-phrase-to-you/560312/32 "2010-11-12T00:20:11Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > Harold? Sigh, my google-fu is weak, but I’m remembering a Jello pudding commercial with Bill Cosby where one of the kids says ‘you com out of there, old weird Harold.’ Or maybe I’m just imagining it. ---
**Author:** ![Rhiannon8404](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhiannon8404/32/17929_2.png) [@Rhiannon8404](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhiannon8404)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-eat-your-wheaties-a-meaningful-phrase-to-you/560312/33 "2010-11-12T00:25:03Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > Sigh, my google-fu is weak, but I’m remembering a Jello pudding commercial with Bill Cosby where one of the kids says ‘you com out of there, old weird Harold.’ Or maybe I’m just imagining it. On Bill Cosby’s early album titled _Wonderfulness_ Old weird Harold is one of his friends. In “Go Carts” Old Weird Harold is his friend who stole the extra baby carriage wheel because his go cart was a Continental. ---
**Author:** ![Runs\_With\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/278dde/32.png) [@Runs\_With\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Runs_With_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-eat-your-wheaties-a-meaningful-phrase-to-you/560312/34 "2010-11-12T03:40:27Z")
I answered yes and that I’m 41…and I’ll add that when I was ten the only people who would have said that phrase to me were 40+, and so I wouldn’t expect to hear it from anyone under 70. ---
**Author:** ![KRC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/45deac/32.png) [@KRC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KRC)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-eat-your-wheaties-a-meaningful-phrase-to-you/560312/35 "2010-11-12T03:59:13Z")
I’m in my 40’s and I don’t recall it, though I’m familiar with the phrase, often said to a grouchy person, “Who peed in your Wheaties this morning?” ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-eat-your-wheaties-a-meaningful-phrase-to-you/560312/36 "2010-11-12T04:26:05Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > When you’re slow on the draw and need somethin’ to chaw, I hanker for a hunk o’ cheese. Keys go here, and fingers go here, but smart little buddies know they don’t go here! Wait, that’s… not how I expected it to sound. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-eat-your-wheaties-a-meaningful-phrase-to-you/560312/37 "2010-11-12T04:52:42Z")
I have now used the phrase in question twice today. Nine minutes to midnight; that’s probably it for today. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-eat-your-wheaties-a-meaningful-phrase-to-you/560312/38 "2010-11-12T06:44:32Z")
It took me a bit to remember what it meant, but I did at least know about the phrase. ---
**Author:** ![UncleRojelio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unclerojelio/32/3160_2.png) [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2010, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-eat-your-wheaties-a-meaningful-phrase-to-you/560312/39 "2010-11-16T21:49:02Z")
> [@KRC](#): > > I’m in my 40’s and I don’t recall it, though I’m familiar with the phrase, often said to a grouchy person, “Who peed in your Wheaties this morning?” Around here it’s always been, “Who pissed in your Corn Flakes this morning?” A matter of taste I suppose. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-eat-your-wheaties-a-meaningful-phrase-to-you/560312.md?page=1)