[TeMPOraL]

> cereal is cheap and sugar is addictive. Better to take the time to eat a good non-processed-food breakfast.

Cheap/easily available, tasty/desirable thanks to sugar, trivial&quick to make and eat when time is at a premium - that sounds perfect in general, doubly perfect when you're trying to ensure kids eat something relatively nutritious before school. I imagine that's why cereals stuck around - it's the "trick kids into drinking milk" plus energy booster for school children.

(Also, sure, it's "better to take the time to eat a good non-processed food breakfast", but most people have neither the time nor money for that.)

[adrian_b]

Traditional bread or a cereal porridge microwaved in a few minutes from pure unsweetened cereal seeds or flakes are more nutritious and much cheaper than breakfast cereals.

Unlike breakfast cereals, they do not contain sugars, but when eaten simultaneously with sweetened milk, there will be no noticeable taste difference. When you sweeten the milk yourself, the amount of added sugar is normally far smaller than the unbelievably high amounts typical for breakfast cereals.