Imagine a person waking up in the morning and pouring a bowl of cereal the way the majority of people do, with cereal first followed by the milk. Suppose the person gets up to use the bathroom or make a phone call. By the time they get back the cereal has become a soggy mess and no longer appetizing. This consequence could even happen if the person eats too slowly or if the bowl of cereal is too large to get through in a timely manner. Everyday the issue of soggy cereal ruins someone’s morning. However, there is a simple solution; put the milk first. Putting milk first reduces the issue of soggy cereal substantially and is the better way to enjoy a bowl of cereal.
First, it needs to be established why crunchy foods are better than soggy foods. For most of us, the preference is unconscious but not always understood why. Evolutionarily, crunchy foods such as ripe vegetables, insects, or nuts contain a lot of nutrients which is why our ancestors gravitated towards these foods. When we learned how to control fire, crispy foods such as cooked meats were associated with richer flavors and were safer to eat. Our affinity towards crunchy foods is ascertained by the generalization that foods that are crunchy are generally safe to eat, such as ripe fruits, while foods that are mushy tend to be rotten. Additionally, we are drawn to crunchy foods because the sound of the crunch substantially delays sensory habituation so that we get bored of the food less easily. Research also shows that more regions of the brain are active when eating crunchy foods than foods that do not crunch. This is due to the added auditory stimulus that engages the brain during eating. For these reasons, the crunchiness of the cereal is crucial to fully enjoy it.
By putting the cereal in after the milk, the cereal floats on top of the milk with the majority staying dry. As a result, the eater is in full control of when they want to submerge the cereal in milk by dunking with a spoon for optimal crunchiness. Even if someone is abnormal and claims to like soggy cereal, they can still enjoy cereal however they like because they have the agency to choose how much and for how long their cereal is in the milk. One might argue that the bottom layer of the cereal could still get soggy and while that is true, cereal eating is an act of compromises. It is better to have only a small portion of cereal become soggy than it is to have all of the cereal soggy by pouring milk all over it. By pouring milk first, one can enjoy their cereal with confidence that the cereal towards the end of eating will be just as crunchy as when the cereal was first poured.
By pouring the milk first, one can know how much cereal they are going to be getting. There is a certain ratio how much milk is needed for a certain amount of cereal. The amount of milk needed is the amount absorbed by the cereal plus the amount that goes with eat bite on the spoon. Therefore, over time one can figure out how much milk to pour for the certain amount of cereal they want to eat. Since milk has a consistent volume and density, the amount of milk that fills to a certain line of a bowl will always be the same. However, the same cannot be said for cereal since cereals come in different shapes and sizes. Therefore filling to the same line with different cereal yields varying amounts of cereal. Thus pouring cereal first is inferior in that it is harder to determine how much cereal one is really getting, which leads to either not having enough or having too much cereal. Furthermore, already having cereal in the bowl blocks one’s line of sight of how much milk they are actually pouring in. Without the visual stimulus to judge how much milk is being inputted, one runs the risk of under or over-pouring. One could overpour by failing to realize that the depth of the milk underneath far exceeds the desired amount needed and one could under-pour for similar reasons with the added consideration that one would have to prematurely stop pouring milk if the cereal risks overflowing. It is far easier and more convenient to pour additional cereal than it is to pour more milk, which has to return to the fridge after every trip. The amount of time cereal spends submerged in milk also affects its flavor as the cereal is infusing with and saturating the milk. The juxtaposition of the dry, crunchy cereal with the sweet richness of the milk enhances the eating experience. Any hints of sogginess would diminish its effect. Author Neal Stephenson in his novel Cryptonomicon asserts that the best way to eat cereal is the have “the dry nuggets of cereal and cryogenic milk” enter the mouth with minimal contact so that the main reaction takes place in the mouth. This, he claims, is the art of world-class cereal-eating.
At this point the reader might wonder, “Why does any of this matter? Why does it matter how one eats their cereal? A trivial task at best.” Well contrary to common sense, it does matter, a lot. Many people eat cereal for breakfast in the morning and enjoying cereal better gives a better start to one’s day, increasing mood and productivity and improving quality of life. The auditory stimulation achieved from crunching results in heightened brain activity, leading to increased awareness and problem solving skills. Moreover, a significant portion of the Earth’s population is starving everyday and yet thousands of tons of food is wasted in America alone. People do not want to eat soggy cereal and pouring in cereal first greatly increases the probability of soggy cereal, leading people to throw away what would have been perfectly good food. Therefore, it is not only for the sake of enjoying cereal better, but by pouring in milk first, we could be one step closer to ending world hunger.
