I heard this story months ago and, when shopping with my teen son who asked for some cereal, I told him about it. He said “Don’t blame me, I’m asking for cereal now!”
Then he went home and ate it out of the box by the handful while playing video games. 
They weren’t marketed as “no washing”, the idea was that you could eat cereal on the go by buying a little half-pint milk. It was less “no washing” and more “No need to carry a bowl with you everywhere in order to enjoy cereal”.
They’ve been replaced with the equally convenient, but less soggy cereal cups. You can get them in the sugar rush or wellness options. The links are to Amazon multi-packs, but you can get individual varieties of most popular cereals in any drugstore.
Yes, but there are people more virtuous than you who are filling up landfills even slower, so you’re awful too.
I don’t like those cups.
They come with too much cereal in them. Sometimes I dump out a third because I can’t eat all of it.
The container isn’t a bowl. It’s a cup. A bowl’s shape makes it so that every cereal particle gets its fair shake of milk soakage. But you don’t get that effect in a cup. In a cup, everything on the bottom gets soaked (and soggified), while the cereal on the top is dry and unpleasant.
The opportunity cost of eating a bowl of cereal is pretty terrible. If your goal is to lose weight, cereal is terrible. None of the cereals on that page are getting you under 300 calories a bowl when you add milk, and many are going to be near 500. If you’re trying to build muscle, cereal has very little protein, especially compared to microwaving some eggs+cottage cheese. You’re comparing ~40g protein in the eggs+cheese compared to maybe 10 in the cereal and milk.
Changing attitudes towards nutrition are likely going to see cereal even less popular. People are finally realizing low fat is meaningless and pure calorie counting and carb restriction are usually the most maintainable options.
What if they like toast for breakfast? Or apples? Or bacon? Maybe they’re eating actual food rather than highly processed sugar puffs?
I never eat cereal because I never have milk in the house. OH NOES - I’m too lazy to buy milk every week!
There’s no virtue attached to eating cereal. It’s inconvenient, it leaves you hungry and it’s not even all that good for you.
Put some peanut butter on a nice wheat bread. It’s faster, you can hold it one hand, and you won’t be hungry again in two hours. And it doesn’t involve landfills in any way. Win-win!
But the knife. You have to wash it. Put the peanut butter on the bread with your finger!
Those still exist. I never buy them, but they’ve been provided at every hotel I can remember.
“Opportunity cost”?
The thing about cereal is, you can actually utilize a technique called “portion control” and only eat a limited amount. Whereas (for example) eating a single protein/energy bar can easily account for 200-300 calories, assuming you confine yourself to just one.
Based on the number of fat millennials I see, not many are doing that.
Yeah, I find it is very easy to pour exactly as much cereal as I want into the bowl. Also, I like milk.
Portion control can be utilized on any food. Just eat half the bar and save the rest for later.
So I’m allowed to eat half of a bowl of cereal but not half a protein bar? Seems a bit sus to me. You could just eat cottage cheese or added protein oatmeal and have the same “half-bowl” effect too. On top of that, a single protein bar or fried egg or anything not carb heavy will keep you full much longer as well as stabilize blood sugar. With 400 calories of cereal, you’re getting nearly 70 grams of carbs and maybe 10 of protein from the milk. With 400 calories of eggs, you’re getting nearly 6 eggs, which is a ton of food keeping you full likely past lunch, as well almost 50 grams of protein, and closer to 75 if you mix in some cottage cheese. Eating cereal day-to-day is the objectively worse choice compared to a high protein diet, and its arguably worse than just not eating a breakfast at all.
Also, Obesity is highest among the 45-65 age group. Millennials (18-25 year olds) have almost half the obesity rate, 20.4% vs 38.9% in my state. Seems like being lazy wins in the public health arena.
Do you keep your peanut butter in a big lump on the kitchen counter or something?
No. That’s where the cat sleeps.
Who the hell eats 6 eggs and almost a cup of cottage cheese for one meal? I agree with your overall premise that protein > carbs, but that is a shitton of food.
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the sad thing is that the people who complain about “kids today” don’t want to admit that they’re the reason kids are the way they are.
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As someone the media classifies as part of Generation X, I’m not really bothered by Millenials. In fact, I rather appreciate the irony of Boomers bitching the loudest about them since it’s my understanding Millenials are mostly the offspring of the Baby Boomers.
I think that was the point, that for roughly the same calories as a bowl of cereal and milk then you could eat a LOT of some other kind of food.
However, if you follow the suggested serving size I don’t think many cereals are 400 calories even with milk. The only cereal I have in the house is some Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds from when my mother was visiting, and that’s 130 calories per 3/4 cup serving dry and 170 with 1/2 cup of skim milk. That said, a big reason why I don’t normally eat cereal myself anymore (I’m an Xer and did eat cereal pretty much every morning for about 30 years) is that I realized the suggested serving size was less than what I habitually poured into my bowl and that if I stuck to the suggested serving I was hungry before lunchtime.
A 5.3 oz. container of Greek yogurt has about the same number of calories as the suggested serving of dry cereal, and I personally find it more filling.
I’ve seen them in the stores recently. My grandmother used to buy them so everyone would have something we liked, although we were never allowed to eat it directly from the box. I really think they were marketed to campers, so they could simply toss the container into the bonfire afterwards.
You’ve never lived with a teenage boy, have you?
Mine is about as likely to cook six eggs as he is to cook a pot roast. Heck, he didn’t bother to pour his cereal into a bowl…