While Jerry Seinfeld, Melissa McCarthy, Amy Schumer and Hugh Grant got top billing, sweet breakfast foods from the 1960s are arguably the real stars of the recent movie “ Unfrosted ,” a comedy loosely based on the invention of Pop-Tarts. What’s more, many of those breakfast products from the movie are still household names. When I was a child, I too enjoyed some of the sugary cereals featured in “Unfrosted,” and I ate Pop-Tarts too.
In fact, I still have a box or two of these cereals squirreled away at my house, even though I’m well into adulthood, working as an assistant professor of nutrition and dietetics . There are reasons why these foods are so popular – and why the cereal aisle in your supermarket looks much the same as it did decades ago. Their sweet taste, simple ingredients and powerful marketing promoting memorable cartoon mascots still resonate within us, even after our childhood is long over.
No wonder projected revenues for the cereal industry in 2024 are US$22.5 billion for the U.S.
alone, and global revenue is predicted to increase from $81.6 billion in 2024 to $139 billion in 2033. The sweet appeal of sugary cereals In a landmark study, researchers in 2006 gave rats a choice between saccharin-sweetened water or cocaine.
Ninety-four percent of the rats preferred the saccharin. And this included a group of cocaine-addicted rats – 100% of them chose the saccharin . Technically though, sweetness is not considered addictive .
Rather, humans have an.