March 7 is celebrated as National cereal Day, and more than likely busy families enjoyed a bowl of it before they dashed out of the house for school and work. A bowl of cold cereal is convenient and saves a lot of time in the mornings. It is an ideal breakfast food for children and adults.

Cereal wasn't always a popular breakfast food, but it is today. It has been considered a good food for kids over the years. That has changed because adults also eat cereal, and they don't limit eating it only for breakfast. Adults have found a bowl of cereal to be a good nighttime snack.

Cereal is the most popular breakfast food in America and the quickest one to prepare for families who are rushing off to work and school on a busy morning during the week. On the weekend when they are not rushing, a breakfast usually consists of something else such as bacon, eggs, and pancakes.

Interesting things about cereal

Many people start their day with a bowl of dry cereal. Some eat it with milk, but there are some who like it without milk. Many brands are excellent sources of B vitamins, fiber, and iron.

More than 314 million people in the United States eat cereal, and 49 percent of them eat it for breakfast. The shelves in the cereal aisle at the grocery stores are stocked with every kind.

Therefore, it is not hard finding one that every member of the family likes. With so many choices available, it is not unusual to see several boxes of different brands in households.

About 2.7 billion boxes of cereal are sold every year. That's enough boxes to go around the earth thirteen times. Astronauts from Apollo 11 took some with them when they went to the moon on July 20, 1969.

It had to be mixed with fruit and made into bars because the absence of gravity kept the astronauts from pouring milk into a bowl.

Popular brand made by accident

Many people don't know that the invention of a popular brand of cereal happened by accident.

John Harvey Kellogg and his brother Will Keith Kellogg were experimenting with boiled wheat in 1877. The brothers accidentally left some of it out overnight and found it stale the next day. They did not throw the batch away. Instead, they rolled it out and discovered that each berry formed its own flake. Since it worked so well with wheat, they tried it with corn, and we know it today as Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.

Other than Kellogg brands, there are many other manufacturers. The major companies based in the United States include Post, General Mills, Quaker, and TreeHouse Foods. Types of dry cereals include wheat, corn, bran, oats, and rice.
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