Whether you eat it with a spoon in a bowl full of milk or straight from the box, it's hard to go wrong with a bite full of Cheerios. The classic breakfast cereal has stood the test of time and remained a fan favorite for generations. Cheerios is one of the many snacks still enjoyed today that was actually invented during WWII .
The cereal has been around since 1941 when General Mills physicist Lester Borchardt discovered a way to turn regular, everyday oats into bites of puffy, crunchy goodness. This discovery was a major innovation in the cereal world when both of the top cereal brands, Wheaties and Corn Flakes, utilized corn as a main ingredient. This gave Cheerios a leg up on the competition — in order to show consumers exactly what this brand-new cereal was made of, it was originally called "Cheerioats.
" However, the name Cheerioats only stuck around for a few years and was changed to Cheerios when General Mills was threatened with legal action that spooked it into changing the name to Cheerios. Cheerioats was too similar to another competing breakfast brand A catchy name for an item can be extremely helpful (or hurtful) when it comes to product sales. It is likely why Quaker Oats became so concerned when Cheerioats saw major success.
The company famed for oatmeal products felt the name Cheerioats was too close to Quaker Oats, a product that had been on the market prior to General Mills' WWII invention. General Mills bowed out gracefully and made the subtle change to Ch.
