Yes, I realize this is a minor and possibly petty annoyance. I eat cereal for breakfast several days a week, and I prefer a variety of cereals. Among my favorites are non-sugary cereals such as Grape Nuts, Wheaties and Corn Flakes. I find Corn Flakes on sale once a month or so, but I haven’t seen Grape Nuts or Wheaties on sale at any of my three local grocery chains for many months. Every week, I look to stock up, but they are never on sale.
Apple Jacks, Fruity Pebbles, Cap’n Crunch and Frosted Flakes, on the other hand, are seemingly on sale every other week, rotating on and off sale.
Why are sugary cereals on sale so much more often than “adult” cereals? I imagine it has something to do with brand loyalty, but I would think kids would be more insistent on a particular brand than adults, but I could be wrong.
Giant Food has 18 oz. boxes of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes on sale right now. The store’s version of Corn Flakes in the same size is also on sale, as is the store’s version of Grape Nuts.
I’ve never paid much attention to the Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs cereals, but I often see Life, Frosted Mini-Wheats, raisin bran, Special K, and Honey Bunches of Oats on sale at Giant Eagle.
They are all sugary, except shredded wheat, and you have to search for the ones that are not (in small print) sugar frosted. Kids cereals typically have about double the sugar of adult ceeals.
Even the “adult” cereals, like Wheaties and Special K and Corn Flakes , are loaded with sugar. In fact, one ounce of Special K contains more sugar than one ounce of Coca Cola, and more salt than one ounce of potato chips. Read the labels if you don’t believe it.
I pay between $4-7.00 a dozen in NYC, but I always get the cage-free or organic brown ones. The ones where the yolks are as luminous orange as an October sunrise.
Which is meaningless. No one drinks one ounce of Coke, they drink the whole 12 ounces. One serving.
One ounce of Special K is almost a cup. One serving.
When Coke started putting their drinks in cans, the label said an average serving was a half a can. Those green bottles that preceded them were only 7 ounces. In a lot of countries where Coke is still marketed in deposit bottles, they re still 7 or 8 ounces. Most third world countries can’t afford the economic or the environmental cost of cans.
“Meaningless” is a rather strong absolutism. What you mean is that the equal or higher amount of sugar per unit volume is mitigated somewhat by the difference in typical serving size.
I can get free-range eggs from several hobby farms near me for about $2.00-$2.50 a dozen. I buy them occasionally, but frankly, I can tell very little, if any, difference in terms of taste. They do look prettier, but that’s about it.
I think it’s confirmation bias. I usually shop at Kroger and see healthy-ish cereals (Special K, Cheerios, etc) on sale about as often as sugary brands.
It may seem otherwise because there are so many more sugary brands, so if the sale items were randomly determined, it would be a sugar cereal more often.
