# Why milk on cereal? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 14, 2005, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-milk-on-cereal/321624 "2005-09-14T17:07:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![leandroc76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bb73d2/32.png) [@leandroc76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leandroc76)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2005, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-milk-on-cereal/321624/21 "2005-09-15T13:02:53Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Good question. It’s not written in stone anywhere. My wife and daughter eat their cereal dry. I put milk on, but only because I’ve been brought up that way. Corn Flakes are by no means an obvioous preparation from corn, and it took a bit of work for the Kelloggs to come up with them. It’s even less obvious that they should be immersed in milk. Actually, Kellog gave up and shut down the machines from tyring to compete with Post. The next day he “Discovered” Corn flakes. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2005, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-milk-on-cereal/321624/22 "2005-09-15T13:56:24Z")
> [@asterion](#): > > I once poured horchata (we were out of milk) on Rice Krispie Treats cereal. That was quite possibly the sweetest thing I have ever eaten in my life. I don’t recommend it on something sugary but horchata might work on corn flakes. Now _that_ may just be the perfect way to balance the too-much-sweetness of Frosted Flakes with the too-much-blandness of corn flakes. Too bad horchata’s not in general availability… ---
**Author:** ![SkeptiJess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@SkeptiJess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkeptiJess)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2005, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-milk-on-cereal/321624/23 "2005-09-15T15:19:47Z")
Cold breakfast cereal was invented by several health food advocates back in the late 1800s. These fellows (named Kellogg and Post) ran vegetarian sanitariums and came up with breakfast cereal as a high-fiber alternative to the then-popular breakfast of meat and some more meat. Milk was an allowable product at these sanitariums, and it is my WAG (I couldn’t find an absolute cite for this) that because milk or cream was commonly eaten with porridges, it was an obvious choice to moisten the flakes and nuggets given to the sanitarium guests for breakfast. This also added a protein to the vegetarian diet they were eating. The cereal was popular among sanitarium guests and was soon introduced to the public. So far as I can tell (looking at pictures of old boxes, old ads in magazines, etc.) cereal was always marketed to be eaten with milk. They were marketing the stuff to mothers, remember, and moms of the day would have considered milk a very healthy food. And once we moved on from Corn Flakes to Cap’n Crunch, the habit of pouring milk on cereal was set. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2005, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-milk-on-cereal/321624/24 "2005-09-15T15:20:10Z")
The really funny thing is that that was the only time I can remember us ever having any horchata in the house. I think my brother needed it for one of his Spanish classes for some reason and some of it wound up coming home. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2005, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-milk-on-cereal/321624/25 "2005-09-15T15:31:34Z")
> [@](#): > > Actually, Kellog gave up and shut down the machines from tyring to compete with Post. The next day he “Discovered” Corn flakes. That’s not the way I’ve heard the story in various places. The discovery was fortuitous, but not because Kellogg “gave up”. And IIRC Post wasn’t even in the running at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2005, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-milk-on-cereal/321624/26 "2005-09-15T16:06:46Z")
[quote=Rufus Xavier] I once ate Buc Wheats cereal with beer instead of milk. It was good, actually.I poured hot coffee on HiLo’s one winter morning. It wasn’t as bad as I anticipated: sort of a lo-carb, hi-protein, caffeinated slurry that warmed the tummy. Wouldn’t do it again, though. ---
**Author:** ![CynicalGabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2005, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-milk-on-cereal/321624/27 "2005-09-15T16:24:23Z")
Now, don’t knock it 'till you’ve tried it, but - vodka. ---
**Author:** ![h.sapiens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e0b2c6/32.png) [@h.sapiens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/h.sapiens)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2005, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-milk-on-cereal/321624/28 "2005-09-15T17:45:23Z")
Water on Cheerios and butter on Pop Tarts are two ideas that never occured to me until I read about them here. Gotta love the SDMB (although I don’t think I’ll be trying the Cheerios thing). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-milk-on-cereal/321624.md?page=1)