1359: Breakfast Cereal | Skeptical Sunday

1359: Breakfast Cereal | Skeptical Sunday

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Jordan Harbinger: [00:00:00] Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host Jordan Harbinger. Today I'm here with Skeptical Sunday co-host, writer, and researcher Nick Pell. On The Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you.

Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. During the week we have long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, spies, CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers and performers. On Sundays though it's Skeptical Sunday. A rotating guest co-host and I will break down a topic you may have never thought about and debunk common misconceptions about that topic.

Topics such as the death industry, homeopathy, hypnosis, banned foods, internet porn and more. And if you're new to the show or you want- It's funny because whenever I read one I'm like, "That was Nick, that was Nick, that was Nick." Like, all the weird ... all the super weird ones it's like, oh, okay. And I have to update that list because now we have all kinds of just icky stuff in there that's not [00:01:00] listed.

But then again I want people to continue listening to this podcast, so I don't know. Maybe we'll keep the list as is. Anyway, if you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about the show I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes on persuasion, negotiation, psychology, disinformation, junk science, crime and cults and more that'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show.

To add to that list, cutting your own balls off, depending on if that episode is out yet because yes- ... that's another Nick Pell Skeptical Sunday. Anyway, just visit jordanharbinger.com/start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Today- Decidedly less disgusting than the aforementioned castration, breakfast cereal.

Whether you eat that or something else every morning... Well, it still has to do with dicks though, doesn't it? We'll get there. Whether you eat that or something else every morning, chances are good that you don't give it a lot of thought. It just sits there being cornflakes or bran ready to get tossed in a bowl and drowned in milk, or maybe you pour it into a bowl of milk that's already there if you're a psychopath.

But behind your morning breakfast [00:02:00] is a long and strange tale of crusade against masturbation, the addition of copious amounts of sugar, aggressive marketing at children, and its status enshrined as the most important meal of the day. Now, disclaimer, there is going to be a fair amount of talk about adult subjects.

I wasn't kidding. It, it- actually, there is a penis breakfast cereal connection- ... that I wasn't expecting when we originally started with this episode. I know it's an episode about breakfast cereal, but if you have kids in the car, well, I don't know, depends how open you are as a family. But maybe listen to another episode, just one that doesn't have Nick Pell as the host.

That's a safe bet. Yeah, right. That's a safer plan. Cereal is almost synonymous with breakfast, but why? How did anti-masturbation plain grains go to being sugar bombs with a toy inside? Here to help me dig to the bottom of the box, prize and all, is writer and researcher Nick Pell. Nick, I'm guessing y- you're not a breakfast cereal guy, maybe not even a bre- are you doing intermittent fasting or any of that crap?

Nick Pell: No. I'm a, I'm a dozen raw eggs for breakfast guy. [00:03:00]

Jordan Harbinger: Raw eggs. How many times have you had salmonella this week?

Nick Pell: I never have had salmonella more than three times in a week,

Jordan Harbinger: tops. Just explosive reactions. Were you raised not to eat raw eggs because like, you can get sick from it? My parents were always, like, militant never eat a raw egg.

Nick Pell: Yeah, and so it was weird for me to get over the hump when I started doing raw eggs, and I d- and I'm also, like, neurotic that I will only buy pastured eggs for this reason, not cage-free, not free-range. It's got to be pastured eggs.

Jordan Harbinger: You mean pasteurized or pastured?

Nick Pell: No, pastured.

Jordan Harbinger: What does that mean?

Nick Pell: The chickens just run around in a field.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, I see, so it's more organic-y, crin- granola eat than cage-free. Like, it's-

Nick Pell: Yeah ...

Jordan Harbinger: just more kind to the chicken?

Nick Pell: Which, to be clear, is also important to me. This is the remnants of my five years of veganism. But yeah, battery eggs are dirty.

Jordan Harbinger: Battery eggs?

Nick Pell: Eggs from factory farms, from battery hens. That's some dirty eggs.

Jordan Harbinger: Oof. I- [00:04:00] so in return, these chickens that have had a nicer life are not going to try to kill you with their offspring when you consume them?

Nick Pell: Happy chickens lay tastier eggs.

Jordan Harbinger: All right. Citation needed, but I'm with you. I'm with you. I get it.

Nick Pell: I'm not one of these guys who thinks raw eggs have magical properties, by the way.

I just can't be bothered to cook when it's 110 degrees out at 6:00 AM in Arizona.

Jordan Harbinger: Ugh, man. Isn't that raw egg thing kind of gross, though? Or do- are you putting some other good stuff in there so it doesn't taste like a bunch of boogers?

Nick Pell: If you stick raw eggs in a blender- You will not even know that they're there if you add milk, protein powder, a little maple syrup.

Trust me, it's actually really good. It's like drinking a milkshake.

Jordan Harbinger: I'm going to give it a shot. It actually sounds- I mean, it's an easy way to get, like, 60 grams of protein-

Nick Pell: Yes ...

Jordan Harbinger: w- in one batch.

Nick Pell: Yeah, this is going to be valuable information, uh, at the end of the episode when you're thoroughly convinced that breakfast cereal is the worst thing on Earth you could possibly eat.

Jordan Harbinger: It's funny y- this episode because I ate cereal until I was, like, 33 [00:05:00] or something, and the only reason I stopped is this is back when I was doing the dating company thing, and we had these clients come in, and they were, like, these enormous bodybuilders from Australia And they were like, "That's what you eat for breakfast?"

And I was like, "Yeah." And they're like, "Ditch that crap, man." Because they were like raw eggs in the morning, protein shake, hit the gym by the time the sun is out. I worked out with them once, and they had... I couldn't work in with them because they had so many plates on the bar that the bar would bend downward, and I was like, "Wow, I've never seen that in real life."

Nick Pell: Hell yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: Just real iron heads. And they're like, they basically had to explain to 33-year-old me, this is in 2013, this is not good for... This is what, what we're going to get into in this episode, but they're like, "This is just junk food that you've been led to believe has nutritional value." And I was like, "I don't even like it.

I just eat it because I thought, you know, breakfast." And they're like, "No, this is tr- you're actually just eating complete trash. Just d- you're better off eating nothing." And so anyway, I'm going to guess you don't let your kid [00:06:00] eat cereal for breakfast.

Nick Pell: It's very, very rare. One of the things we're going to get into in this episode, as you said, is like, is this is one of the worst things that you could possibly eat, especially for breakfast.

Jordan Harbinger: I'd say that there's a, just speaking from personal experience, a huge disconnect between what people think cereal is and what cereal actually is. And I don't think most people give it a lot of thought. Again, I'm 33, and I had to have these giant dudes basically slap the box out of my hands and throw it in the trash for me.

That was the end of my cereal career.

Nick Pell: There's a lot of myths about breakfast cereal, most of which we have advertising to thank for. Cereal is a marketer's dream. This is one of the things that Don Draper nails on Mad Men. You can tell any story you want about cornflakes. It is a complete blank canvas. So the first myth about cereal is that it's a part of this balanced breakfast.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, they always have cereal sitting with toast and [00:07:00] OJ and a bunch of bananas. Like you're just dying for a ton of carbs first thing in the morning.

Nick Pell: Magic sugar bombs are fortified with whole grains. So the thing is, you actually do want your breakfast to be balanced in as much as you want protein, fat, and carbs to get the day going.

Unfortunately, cereal basically just has carbs. Anything else you're getting is from the milk, and the amount of that you consume is probably going to be pretty negligible.

Jordan Harbinger: Also, fact check, no one is... Whenever I used to see that, right, that brief image that was on the screen for a split second, no one's eating cereal as part of this complete breakfast, right?

With the to- they shov- the toast and the orange juice and the milk, and there's like a fruit thing. No, they are, they're taking the cereal, and they're shoveling that and that alone into their mouth as fast as possible because they don't want to cook anything, and the school bus is coming in four minutes.

Nick Pell: Yeah, a good breakfast is Greek yogurt with seeds or scrambled eggs on toast or with some spinach or, you know, something like that.

Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm.

Nick Pell: So let's talk about why cornflakes, the [00:08:00] most innocuous cereal on planet Earth- Is not a good breakfast. It's the most basic cereal there is. It's not covered in sugar, and you're still looking at 25 to 29 grams of carbs, two to three grams of protein, and less than one gram of fat.

Jordan Harbinger: Cornflakes are low in fat.

Nick Pell: Now you're thinking like a marketer.

Jordan Harbinger: I remember those days.

Nick Pell: Yeah, that's exactly how I would try and sell Cornflakes, low in fat. You're definitely not going to get by on high in fiber because they're not. They're basically just all starch and sugar.

Jordan Harbinger: Mm.

Nick Pell: Fortify it to add nutrients, so I guess it's good in that department, but it's a terrible breakfast.

And Corn Flakes is one of the cleanest cereals on the market.

Jordan Harbinger: Wasn't part of the pitch that you needed tons of carbs to get the day going? Like, didn't people kind of used to believe that?

Nick Pell: Oh, I'm about to put on my tinfoil hat here.

Alex Jones: I don't like 'em putting chemicals in the water that turn the frigging frogs gay.

Jordan Harbinger: Tinfoil hat secured.

Nick Pell: The carb-loading [00:09:00] narrative begins around World War II. The government starts telling people how important it is to have fruit and grains for breakfast, and wow, what an amazing coincidence, this is also the time when meat and eggs are scarce because of the war effort.

Jordan Harbinger: Huh.

Nick Pell: I think that this narrative lingering has much more to do with breakfast cereal being pushed than people just used to be so stupid that they thought eating tons of carbs first thing in the morning was a good thing.

Jordan Harbinger: So when does that narrative all start to fall off? By the way, I'm... Is anyone else surprised that this goes all the way back to World War II? If you told me that in the '80s this started, I'd be like, "That totally makes sense," not just because it's the beginning of my cereal career/life, but I don't know, I just...

It's bizarre to me that this goes back so far. You'd think, it, it's been 70 years and we're, we're still buying this crap. I don't know. It just seems like we should've learned by now, but okay. When does the narrative start to fall off that [00:10:00] eating tons of carbs is good for you?

Nick Pell: In the '70s and the '80s.

Jordan Harbinger: Ah.

Nick Pell: You can see ads for sugar in the '50s and '60s, and it's saying stuff like, "Sugar gives you lots of pep." That's funny. Not turns you into a diabetic.

Jordan Harbinger: Did they even know about that causal relationship back then? Maybe not. American breakfast didn't always include a bowl of cereal, though. What was breakfast like pre-War Department push and of course advertising in favor of cereal?

I mean, what, were people just eating eggs and meat like OG stuff that just they couldn't get during the war or war or what?

Nick Pell: There's a bit of history to what Americans have eaten for breakfast. Historically, pioneers were also very carb-heavy because they didn't have industrial slaughterhouses back in the day, so lots of corn-based stuff, porridge, whatever was left over from dinner the night before.

During the so-called Gilded Age in the late 19th and 20th centuries, at least for the middle and upper classes, breakfast was kind of like dinner in the morning. Multi-course [00:11:00] meal of maybe steak and potatoes, maybe what was left over from dinner.

Jordan Harbinger: I see. Okay, so weirdly kind of the opposite of modern times when people sometimes indulge in eating pancakes and eggs and stuff for dinner.

Breakfast for dinner, basically. That's like a trendy thing now in the last couple years.

Nick Pell: Breakfast for dinner is an abomination unto the Lord.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I mean, I'm not a huge fan. Remember when McDonald's was like, "Breakfast all day," and people went absolutely nuts? And I was like, "Who wants an Egg McMuffin at 5:00 PM?

Not me. No thank you."

Nick Pell: Man, I honestly, going against all my health signaling, I would smash a Egg McMuffin really at any hour of the day.

Jordan Harbinger: Really? I mean, they are freaking so good. I'm not even hungry and I'd eat one right now, but it's, in my defense, it's not 5:00 PM.

Nick Pell: I think the McGriddle is maybe the crowning achievement-

of Western civilization, so maybe a-

Jordan Harbinger: What is that? Is that a waffle?

Nick Pell: It's an Egg McMuffin, but they stick it on a pancake.

Jordan Harbinger: That sounds pretty good. Anyway, this is not sponsored by the- It's

Nick Pell: like a pancake sandwich.

Jordan Harbinger: People get really mad [00:12:00] when I recommend fast food. I had McDonald's commercials on this show once.

I wasn't, like, telling people to feed their kids McDonald's. I was, like, talking about their jobs program. People lost their v- minds, dude, their minds. Anyway, continue.

Nick Pell: So yeah, breakfast is, like, this elaborate multi-course thing just like elaborate dinners of the day. That's for the upper and middle classes.

For everyone else, it's something between pioneer breakfast, you know, mush, porridge, cheap grains, or the classic bacon or sausage and eggs combo.

Jordan Harbinger: Mm.

Nick Pell: That gives way to convenience because people are just busy. Industrial work means people have much more regimented lives.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, right. Yeah, they're not a farm where they can spend an extra 20 minutes at breakfast and work an extra 20 minutes or just do a task tomorrow instead of today.

They've got to be at the factory at a certain time.

Nick Pell: It's also worth noting that industrialization makes the production of breakfast cereal on a mass scale possible, but the initial push for cereal [00:13:00] for breakfast doesn't come from the government. It comes from a man by the name of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg-

Jordan Harbinger: Ah.

Nick Pell: Who thought that the biggest problem in the world was jacking off.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I'm, I'm sort of familiar with this. He has this whole bizarre theory about how jerking off is going to turn you into a criminal and make you go insane, and the best way to avoid any of that is somehow by eating Corn Flakes for breakfast.

Like, dot dot dot, eat cereal. I don't... Whatever.

Nick Pell: Yeah. The dots will maybe be connected a little better as we, we go through the episode, but it sounds nuts. That is, however, a fair and accurate summary of Kellogg's beliefs. Kellogg was a Seventh Day Adventist, and a lot of them are vegan or vegetarian. He was later disfellowshipped, which is their version of excommunication, because of theological and business reasons.

The business reasons being that he refused [00:14:00] to centralize his business under control of the church.

Jordan Harbinger: I wondered about that myself because at, at first glance, I was like, oh, they excommunicated or they disfellowshipped him maybe because he was the pervert who thought pancakes made people horny, but okay. Um, it's like, no, they were trying to take his business or something like that.

Okay. Yeah. Okay, I get not wanting the church to take the business that you started just because it's successful. That seems strange to me. I'm curious about that.

Nick Pell: And you'd think that they would, like, want his donations from this successful business, but I guess not. So-

Jordan Harbinger: Mm. Yeah ...

Nick Pell: this is not the only food, by the way, that we have the anti-masturbation crusaders of the 19th century to thank for.

Weirdly, graham crackers.

Jordan Harbinger: Well, okay, wait. Graham crackers are also created so we don't jerk off? I mean, I don't-

Nick Pell: Yes.

Jordan Harbinger: Really? They're so delicious. That's disappointing. Okay.

Nick Pell: Yeah, Sylvester Graham was another one of these guys looking for the perfect food to get people to stop yanking their crank. [00:15:00] Grape Nuts?

Jordan Harbinger: No. Okay.

Nick Pell: Grape Nuts is another one which, as has been said, contains neither grapes nor nuts. That was the Post family.

Jordan Harbinger: So if you grew up thinking a bowl of cereal was a healthy way to start the day, congratulations. You got Don Drapered by a bunch of corn subsidies and cartoon tigers. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Dell and AMD.

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Now, back to Skeptical Sunday. So basically every morning cereal company, and graham crackers also, the whole idea behind cereal period, not just like Kellogg's cereal, but cereal period, is, "Man, too much masturbation. We've got to do something about this. Ah, it must have to do with breakfast and what people are eating," which is such a weird theory.

But I think the [00:18:00] important point is that Kellogg was not just some lone yahoo trying to get people to stop pounding their pud by eating bland food. It's very strange, though. It's like a whole movement, and it's this whole weird moment in American culture where blandness gets tied to

Nick Pell: moral purity. So Kellogg started his crusade as the superintendent of Battle Creek Sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan in 1876, and he published his book Plain Facts for Old and Young, which I haven't read, but I suspect contains very little in the way of facts.

This was published in 1877. He talks a lot about how basically any food that has flavor irritates the nerves and excites your sexual organs, leading to lust and chronic masturbation.

Jordan Harbinger: Right. Well, my addiction to Mexican food makes way more sense

Nick Pell: now. He also believed that- Wow ... frequent enemas chased with a pint of yogurt- [00:19:00]

Jordan Harbinger: Wait, wait.

Where do you put

Nick Pell: the yogurt? Oh- Where do you put the yogurt after the en- Just wait.

Jordan Harbinger: Half

Nick Pell: of it goes in your mouth and half goes in the other end. Yes.

Jordan Harbinger: No. Oh, my... You know what, though? That actually kind of makes sense, right? Because there's like, b- there's prebiotics and live whatever, uh, organisms in the yogurt, but I don't know.

It just does not sound like a good time at all, and quite messy. There is

Nick Pell: some weird, like- Quite messy setup ... lore about what the yogurt is doing when you stick it up there that is going to make you not horny. But anyway.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, not horny. I mean, I f- maybe it could aid digestion because it's got those, like, live cultures in there, but horny?

I don't... I mean, I just think you're not going to get horny because you just- You just had a yogurt enema ... I mean, you, you just gave yourself an enema with, and shoved yogurt in your butt. You, you've already... You're done already. You're done. For some people, that's enough to scratch the itch- Dear God ... if you know what I mean.

Who needs masturbation? I just had a yogurt enema. Okay. There's a soundbite [00:20:00] for you. Uh, c- please save me from myself and start talking. So

Nick Pell: anyway, Kellogg's, you know, worldview, uh, chronic masturbation leads to everything from acne to epilepsy. The book is- Oh, my gosh ... really laughable in terms of how insane it is, but people took it seriously.

He also wants everyone to be a vegetarian. He invented the aforementioned Corn Flakes in 1894. Yes, he is that Kellogg.

Jordan Harbinger: So this guy would not have been a fan of modern Kellogg's cereal, like Count Chocula and stuff like that. I don't know, man. Is that, is that Kellogg's?

Nick Pell: But this guy would not have been a fan of sparkling water.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, to be fair, San Pellegrino's what gets me all hot and bothered and ready for action.

Nick Pell: For me, it's Poland Springs. It's Worcester's finest. It's a little taste of New England. Got a bottle in front of me right now.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, there's something going on here about the Protestant aversion to pleasure. Like, the very idea of enjoying anything is inherently [00:21:00] sinful.

Don't enjoy your food. That might lead to you enjoying yourself. It's just like some weird leap in logic. Well, the Catholic version is

Nick Pell: that suffering is good for you, so we've got that base covered- Yeah ... from a different angle. The weirdest thing is Corn Flakes was an accidental discovery. A batch of dough got left out for too long and became flakes.

So can we pause for a second- Wow ... and acknowledge how hilarious it is that breakfast cereal, a staple of the American diet for over 100 years, exists because an anti-masturbation kook was trying to figure out how to get people to stop jacking off.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I mean, eat this crusty, rotten crap that fell on my factory floor so that you don't jack off until your face melts.

I mean, in my case, it definitely did not work. I had a lot of cereal.

Nick Pell: I could say I've never had Corn Flakes in my life.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, that explains a lot. Okay, so when, when does all the sugary stuff come into play? Because it seems like cereal starts off as this self-conscious attempt to [00:22:00] create the most bland, tasteless, hey, this is some dough from the floor that got all crusty.

Don't add anything else. You know, God forbid you should add any salt to this thing. And later it just becomes breakfast candy. There's marshmallows in there and stuff now, and it's colorful. It's like it's completely different

Nick Pell: than what we started with. So sugar's first introduced to cereal in 1906 by William Keith Kellogg.

That is John's brother. John was steadfastly opposed to the addition of sugar or anything else really with taste to the cornflakes. His brother was less particular. The sweetened version sold like gangbusters, which proved there was a market for sugary breakfast cereals. But still, when you say sugary cereal, I feel like a lot of people aren't thinking of the sweetened version of cornflakes, which I don't think it was identical to Frosted Flakes, which,

you know, are cornflake with sugar. I don't even think it was that sugary.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, [00:23:00] I think people are probably thinking of, like, Golden Crisp, Froot Loops, even Cap'n Crunch. I mean, that stuff, that has a ton of sugar, but it's not what you think of when somebody says sugary cereal. The first one

Nick Pell: of these really sugary cereals is actually Golden Crisp, which was called Sugar Crisp at the time.

It came out in 1949, and it was an instant hit. Frosted Flakes, as we know them, came out in 1952, and they were originally called Sugar Frosted Flakes. Again, that was another big hit.

Jordan Harbinger: And this Kellogg guy's long gone by then, right? Because if he invented cereal in 1894, unless he was like 19 years old, he'd already passed unless he really exceeded the expectation of lifespan because he would've been like pushing 80 plus, you know, years.

So not working most likely. And yeah, well, big hit. Okay, shockingly people like to eat sugar.

Nick Pell: Right? I mean, 1953 you get Sugar Smacks, which are now called Honey Smacks. This is literally 56% sugar. [00:24:00]

Jordan Harbinger: That is so disgusting. Whether you are a child or not, that is really, really gross.

Nick Pell: By the mid to late '50s and early 1960s, you've got a whole slew of sugary cereals with bright colorful packaging and a crew of cartoon mascots like Toucan Sam, Tony the Tiger, Cap'n Crunch, and prizes inside the box.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

Nick Pell: Guess who the target audience for that is?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I can only guess. Sophisticated adult urban professionals are probably not eating Cookie Crisp, right? A d- and with cartoon commercials. Discerning customers of healthy breakfast, foodies, bodybuilders, right. I mean, the target audience is clearly six-year-olds watching Saturday morning cartoons.

I don't know if that still exists.

Nick Pell: It doesn't, sadly, but you are correct. And unless you were raised Amish or something, you know that Saturday morning cartoons were absolutely wallpapered with Tony the Tiger telling you how great it is- Nice ... to start your day off with a bowl full of sugar and [00:25:00] starchy carbs.

Jordan Harbinger: That's right. Between that and the 10:30 AM greasy cheese pizza, government cheese pizza for lunch, it's no wonder everybody was falling asleep in class in the afternoon.

Nick Pell: Yeah, have that with a big thing of chocolate milk right after, you know. Ugh.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

Nick Pell: Extend that sugar crash a little further. I was allowed to eat this kind of thing maybe once a year.

It's insane to me that it's marketed to children. I mean, you can't market cigarettes to kids.

Jordan Harbinger: Well, cigarettes aren't legal for kids, but this is the same era when Joe Camel, like funny mascot for cigarettes, was banned from marketing tobacco to kids. Yeah?

Nick Pell: Yes, but the Joe Camel thing is a little more complicated.

So the parent company RJR claimed that they were marketing, using Joe Camel to market to young adults, which means, you know, "Hey kid, happy 18th birthday." Yeah. "Go get yourself a pack of Camels."

Jordan Harbinger: Exactly, yeah.

Nick Pell: On the other hand, after introducing Joe Camel in 1987 until 1991, their [00:26:00] market share among underage smokers, I have no idea how they would know this, but it skyrocketed from 0.5% to 32.8%.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, how would they know that? It's like, "Oh, we need all this data on who, how many underage smokers are using our product for science purposes." Yeah. "Not to see if our marketing is working or anything, but to see how we can avoid ever having more of them. We would hate to see it go from .5% to 32.8%. That is a tragedy," as he, like, looks at his stock portfolio.

Nick Pell: As he lights a Camel with $100 bill.

Jordan Harbinger: That's right. That's right.

Nick Pell: As far as I'm aware, they never found any internal memos saying, "Boy, this is really going to get the kids smoking Camels." But-

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah ...

Nick Pell: you have to wonder, like, how did they not know? I mean, my first cigarette was a Camel when I was nine, so- Good job.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh man, I somehow absolutely knew that you were in grade school ripping heaters, man.

Nick Pell: Kids smoke for the same reason adults do. Cigarettes are a cool, sexy, and fun way to relax.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:00] Yeah. Your kid is nine. Are you okay with him smoking?

Nick Pell: My kid is a kid. When I was nine, I had membership in the dock workers' union and was paying alimony.

Jordan Harbinger: Honestly, honestly, the bigger grooming there was probably candy cigarettes, which insanely are still made. I went to a store called, shout out to Rocket Fizz in Lake Tahoe. They still sell them and they're a hit, and th- there's like this big case of them and most of them are gone, and I watched kids buy them when they ran into the store.

I mean, they were with their parents and they, it was like, "Oh my God, candy cigarettes." So I don't think they're starting to smoke. I think it was more like, "Holy crap, this still exists?" And the packaging is still the same. Like, they didn't update the design from 1962 or whenever they came up with these.

They're still exactly the same. It's, it's a piece of bubblegum. Nick, do you remember candy cigarettes? A piece of bubblegum with, like, flour-

Nick Pell: No, it's sugar. It's like powdered sugar.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, sugar.

Nick Pell: Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: And then they're wrapped in a paper, and so you can exhale, [00:28:00] so you can blow through it and, like, this puff of powdered sugar will come out of the candy cigarette, and then you chew it.

Nick Pell: Yeah. And between those and Duff McKagan looking like the coolest man who'd ever lived on MTV, I didn't stand a chance, man.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. This-

Nick Pell: But yeah, I mean, the, you're right that these characters in cereal commercials, they're openly and explicitly marketing to children. You know, adults are not going to buy something because a cartoon toucan told them to collect box tops for a free decoder ring.

I would argue that they're possibly worse than Joe Camel, which at least has the plausible deniability of being for young adults. These are explicitly for kids.

Jordan Harbinger: Sure, sure. Just how bad are the sugary cereals? You mentioned one that's 56% sugar or something like that, which is a ton, but you mentioned that one presumably because it's a bit of an outlier?

I don't know.

Nick Pell: A bunch of these cereals have more sugar than ice cream on a per serving basis.

Jordan Harbinger: Wow. For any- Okay, so for everyone who skipped [00:29:00] out on health class, why exactly is sugar so bad for you? Yes, it's high in calories, but what else?

Nick Pell: There's two main reasons. First, it spikes your blood sugar rapidly.

Second, it has poor satiety, which is a fancy way of saying that it doesn't make you feel very full despite the fact that you just inhaled 1,000 calories in a single sitting.

Jordan Harbinger: What do they mean when they say the cereal is fortified with vitamins and minerals? Are they just, that they're just adding that stuff in there?

Nick Pell: So that's when they add vitamins and other nutrients to the cereal. Fortification is pretty weird, too, because they're basically sucking all the nutrients out of the food and then injecting a poor substitute back in its place. So it's like cutting off your finger and slapping a plastic finger back on in its place.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, wow.

Nick Pell: The protein in breakfast cereal is very low. It does not meet your basic needs for feeling full, so you're going to eat a ton of it to feel like you ate anything, and then have a bunch more later because the sugar means you're going to feel [00:30:00] hungry again real soon. Breakfast cereal is also insanely processed, so it's filled with stuff you shouldn't really be eating anyway, flavorings, additives, emulsifiers, things like that.

Jordan Harbinger: The sugar and lack of protein really sounds like it's just a recipe for totally crashing. Add to that it's full of junk, food dyes, preservatives, artificial flavors. It's really hard to understand why anybody still eats this.

Nick Pell: I'm sure there are healthier alternatives. There's tons of protein cereal out there now or just cereal with healthier ingredients, but, you know, back in the day we didn't have that, so people were just eating candy and milk for breakfast.

Jordan Harbinger: Geez, so people are hearing numbers about how much sugar is in this stuff. The numbers don't mean a lot, right? Is, is there any way to contextualize just how bad the amount of sugar actually is? The ice cream comparison was pretty horrifying.

Nick Pell: The USDA recommends that you get less than 50 grams of sugar a day.

This is from all sugar, from fruit even. When you start adding sugar to things, that's when it gets crazy. This is just pure concentrated [00:31:00] sugar, and they pump as much into the food as they want. The American Heart Association's recommendations are a bit stricter as well as more nuanced. They recommend no more than 25 grams a day for women and children and 36 grams a day for men.

For context, that's an apple.

Jordan Harbinger: Does it matter what kind of sugar? As in, is the simple sugar in a cereal better or worse for you than the sugar in an apple?

Nick Pell: It matters a great deal both the source and the type of the sugar. When you eat an apple, the sugar is going to digest a lot slower.

Jordan Harbinger: So this is what glycemic index, glycemic load thing?

I kind of only vaguely know what that is.

Nick Pell: Yeah, the glycemic index is the speed with which carbohydrates turn to sugar once you eat them, and the glycemic load is the glycemic index multiplied by the grams of sugar in a serving. Both are important, but the thing about breakfast cereal is you're just getting slammed with sugar almost instantly, and [00:32:00] then you're getting even more sugar once the starchy carbs break down and enter your bloodstream.

Jordan Harbinger: I see. So you're also getting, with an apple, you're getting a valuable amount of fiber with it. And we already discussed the fiber content of breakfast cereal. There usually isn't any, or they add some sort of token amount of fiber in there. But beyond just not getting fiber, the lack of fiber means you're just kind of mainlining sugar straight into your bloodstream rather than having it slowly digested and absorbed over time.

So this would, what, cause your blood sugar level to spike and then crash, and then that sucks. That's no good.

Nick Pell: Yeah, it's a bit of an overstatement, but basically true. No one ever got fat or got type 2 diabetes from eating too many apples. The same cannot be said of Cap'n Crunch. Cereal is going to have about the same impact on your body that a sugar sandwich on white bread would have.

Jordan Harbinger: Gross. Okay, another thing, as somebody who owns and occasionally uses a food scale, the amount of food that people think is a serving size, at least when [00:33:00] I started weighing my food, it is always just way more than an actual serving size is. So when your kid goes to pour themselves a bowl of Frosted Flakes, or not even my kid, when I go to pour a bowl of Frosted Flakes on a Saturday morning for my kid, if I did so, we're going to dish out one or two or three servings per bowl.

You're not just getting one serving. It's like a handful.

Nick Pell: Absolutely. Adults cannot manage to eyeball a serving size when they're trying to. The chances of a kid doing it are approximately nil.

Jordan Harbinger: It's pretty crazy that kids are just eating what's effectively nutritionally ice cream for, quote-unquote, the most important meal of the day.

Nick Pell: Ah, I'm so glad you mentioned the most important meal of the day because-

Jordan Harbinger: About that ...

Nick Pell: that entire idea that breakfast is the most important meal of the day originated in a 1944 Kellogg's marketing campaign.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, there you go.

Nick Pell: But it just gets repeated like a dietician somewhere decided there [00:34:00] was nothing more important than breakfast.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day for me because I'm fueling myself for the gym, and like French novelist Michel Houellebecq said, "On beach days, perhaps in life more generally, the only truly enjoyable time of day is breakfast." But the importance of breakfast is no more valid than cartoon Fred Flintstone's quip that Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should.

Jordan Harbinger: We'll be right back after a quick word from the sponsors who, unlike breakfast cereal companies, are not trying to sell your children pure sugar using a frog in a sailor hat. Back in a few.

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Jordan Harbinger: This episode is also sponsored by Whatnot. If you've never tried live selling before, Whatnot is one of those things that makes you think, "Huh, why isn't everybody doing this?" Because instead of posting a product and hoping somebody finds it, you go live. You show people what you've got in real time. You answer questions.

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All of the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are searchable and clickable on the website at jordanharbinger.com/deals. Now for the rest of Skeptical Sunday. I, I'm a little hung up on that this French novelist goes to the beach and the, the only time he has a good time is breakfast? The only ti- like, this guy sounds like a real stick in the mud.

Nick Pell: Yeah, he's miserable. That's why I like reading him so much.

Jordan Harbinger: You're on vacation and he's like, "Ugh, I'm at this beach again. Ugh." [00:37:00] "Just give me an unfiltered cigarette and some breakfast. It's the only enjoyable time."

Nick Pell: Literally me at the beach.

Jordan Harbinger: That's you. I, I'm not a beach guy either, but you know, if I'm on vacation, I'm on vacation.

So why do people still think that breakfast cereal is something okay for adults to eat, let alone kids, if everything you're saying is true? I mean, people can read nutritional labels. They can see it's a bunch of sugar and other empty calories. Why hasn't breakfast cereal gone the way of cigarettes?

Nick Pell: Well, people can read nutritional labels, but they very rarely do.

Jordan Harbinger: That's true, but you'd think grown adults would at the very least say, "Man, there's no way my kid's eating Honey Smacks for breakfast ever." Or I, I know there's tons of stuff I do, even stuff that would be age-appropriate, that I would never in a million years let my kids do.

Nick Pell: I think a lot of nostalgia is at play and just the fact that brands hook people early.

We talked about the way that cereal was aggressively marketed at children, and guess what? They got their hooks into you early, and it's very hard to get them out once you have that level of emotional attachment to a brand. [00:38:00] Everyone remembers how great it was to rush to the living room on a Saturday morning, pour yourself a bowl of cereal, and zone out to cartoons for hours at a time, and they don't want to deny their kids that experience.

Jordan Harbinger: Why not opt for one of the healthier cereals? I mean, there- those exist now.

Nick Pell: Well, my kid eats the expensive protein cereal. Um, some of it I think is cost, some of it is access. I don't think anywhere in my town sells healthier protein cereals. I usually buy it online or pick it up when I'm at, you know, a healthier grocery store in Vegas.

But the Walmart in desert nowhere Arizona does not have healthier, nutritious breakfast cereals.

Jordan Harbinger: God, that's honestly so depressing. The amount of people who have access to food, but it's just all garbage.

Nick Pell: In fairness, the local Walmart has a lot of healthy food in it, grass-fed beef and pasture-raised eggs that we talked about earlier, tuna without enough mercury to take your temperature.

What they don't have is niche cereals. So I don't know, buck up, buddy, there's something healthy there. You [00:39:00] just got no cereal for you. Another reason people still eat this junk is that it's convenient, and that's not limited to cereal. A bagel with cream cheese has about the same macros as cheesecake. No one bothers to look into this because they just want to eat something quickly in the morning.

Jordan Harbinger: A bagel with cream cheese has the same macros as cheesecake. That is depressing. I love a good jalapeno cheddar bagel with a little schmear on it.

Nick Pell: It has way less sugar-

Jordan Harbinger: Okay ...

Nick Pell: but the macronutritional profile is roughly the same. Tons of carbs, tons of fat, very little protein.

Jordan Harbinger: I see what you mean.

Nick Pell: The point is people are busy.

Not everyone has a cozy work from home email job, and you add to that family life, hobbies, commute. People just want something quick and easy to get the day started. There's also the halo effect of healthy marketing. Simple things like green checks or nine out of 10 doctors eat this. Is this toothbrush approved by the American Dental Association?

The heart graphics and the claims about [00:40:00] vitamins, rich in fiber. All that sort of thing. Obviously, people have some degree of skepticism about these claims, but there's a moment where you're shopping and you say, "Ah, this one's got vitamins."

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, it's almost subconscious probably, right? It's just, "Oh, I don't, I don't know.

I've got to get a cereal. This one says vitamin B on it. Okay." Yeah, from the perspective of the parent, I guess you'd probably just be like, "This is good enough. I've got to get outta here. I'm tired."

Nick Pell: Yeah. There's also a weird aspect where the cereal aisle is arguably the most overwhelming part of the grocery store.

You're just flooded with bright colors and five different options for the exact same product. I think on a certain level you just shut down.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. What role do agricultural subsidies play in all this, if any?

Nick Pell: Ooh, boy, I wrote a whole thing once about how a Nixon-era bureaucrat wanted to grow corn on every square inch of arable land.

It's a wild story. Corn is the most subsidized crop in America. $9.3 billion in [00:41:00] 2024 alone, which is 5.9% of farm earnings that year. Not subsidies, earnings.

Jordan Harbinger: Wow. Wow, okay. So one in every... More than one in every $20 earned by an American farmer is a federal corn subsidy. Holy smokes.

Nick Pell: Yeah, it's insane. Farm subsidies were first implemented by FDR, so listeners of my episodes know probably how I feel about him, but the father of grow corn everywhere was Earl Butz, who was the Secretary of Agriculture under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

He literally said, "Get big or get out." He said this. And then he said, "Grow corn everywhere," which he only said figuratively, not literally, but yeah, he basically said we're growing corn everywhere. He argues in a documentary called King Corn that he actually provided a valuable service to Americans because corn is kind of the base of the American food pyramid, so you grow tons and tons of cheap corn, and then you go and feed that cheap corn to chickens and [00:42:00] cows.

So on one level, this claim is not as insane as it sounds. Butz is responsible for dramatically reducing the consumer cost of American food over the last 50 years.

Jordan Harbinger: So our tax dollars paid for this?

Nick Pell: Yes.

Jordan Harbinger: Also, the corn isn't just being used to feed cattle or make cans of whole corn, right? It's being used to make 99 cent three liter bottles of soda because of the corn syrup and super cheap breakfast cereal that's loaded with sugar.

So, so much sugar today comes from corn, and I'd imagine that the explosion in sugary cereals and cheaper access to it is just part of this explosion of corn every- dirt cheap corn everywhere in everything.

Nick Pell: Oh, and absolutely. It's, it's all part of the same package. The main thing the United States government boasts about is that it's made calories cheaper by growing all this corn, which is, yes, better than starving, but also means that people have access to cheap food that's horrible for them and only slightly less addictive than crack.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I [00:43:00] was going to say, Americans, do we need cheap- more cheaper calories? I feel like we got that covered.

Nick Pell: Yeah. That's a whole other episode, but to bring it back from this high abstract level to cereal, people learn their habits early on, and that's definitely especially true of good eating habits. So kids who learn that it's okay to have a birthday cake for breakfast...

Uh, ironically, my kid did have birthday cake for breakfast this morning, but it's his birthday- Mm-hmm ... so I'll allow it.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, fair.

Nick Pell: These guys are going to grow up to be adults who see no problem eating garbage in general. That's really the biggest problem. It's not that your kid is going to have the occasionally unhealthy meal.

In fact, I find it kind of bizarre when parents are, like, n- neurotically convinced that if their kid just has one bit of junk food, they're going to grow up to be a slovenly, obese couch potato. The issue is that they're going to learn lifelong bad eating habits.

Jordan Harbinger: So there are subsidies to make corn and [00:44:00] corn syrup cheap, all the ingredients in the cheap cereal.

What about the regulatory structures in place to protect the American consumer from false or misleading advertising? Because this stuff really does seem to toe the line on, like... I mean, it's technically true. Low in fat, has fiber in it, v- has vitamin B, fortified. It's, like, just right on the line of nonsense.

Nick Pell: Well, it's just, that's all it has to be.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, that's true.

Nick Pell: The Federal Trade Commission prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices. Sounds great because there should be consequences for lying to people. The issue is that the cereal companies also employ teams of marketers and lawyers to ensure that whatever they say is on the right side of legal.

So we take a claim like high in fiber. Well, there's no legal definition of what that is. Let's say your cereal box says, "Calcium and vitamin D may reduce the risk of osteoporosis." That's just a true statement. You haven't made any claim at all about your cereal. You've [00:45:00] just said s- something that was true, and you let people fill in the blanks.

You can't say Frosted Flakes cures heart disease, but you don't need to. You just say that it contains ingredients that support heart health, which is not a high bar to clear.

Jordan Harbinger: We don't really ever hear about the cereal lobby, but I, I have a feeling that, like every other industry, you're going to see the cereal companies trying to exert their influence.

What does that look like in practice?

Nick Pell: Mostly they don't want taxes on unhealthy food, and neither do I. It sucks that people eat unhealthy food, but beyond my general taxes bad stance, I'm extra opposed to taxes that are going to be paid by the people with the least money. People in Central Park West and Silicon Valley are not the ones who are going to see more of their income going to taxes if we start putting taxes on sugary cereal, and I think that's worth noting.

I don't think it's a hand-wavy total explanation, but I do think it's worth noting that this would be a tax on the poor. [00:46:00] The other way that these companies lobby is they don't want any restrictions on marketing to kids. And Tony the Tiger, Snap, Crackle, and Pop, these exist for the sole purpose of getting kids to nag their parents to buy them cereal.

Cereal companies also want their advertising budgets to be tax deductible, which kind of seems fair because I don't really want the government playing political football with tax deductions.

Jordan Harbinger: What about regulating advertising to kids? Why don't we do that?

Nick Pell: It sounds like a good idea, and maybe it is, but in a broad blanket way it's constitutionally untenable because you're effectively requesting that the government begin drafting laws restricting speech.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I see. But we don't let people advertise booze to kids. Why cereal? I mean, I know why, but, like, where do we draw the line, I guess?

Nick Pell: Well, I mean, the simplest answer is kids aren't allowed to buy alcohol, but they are allowed to buy cereal, and I think it would be very bizarre if we started carding people who wanted to buy some Frosted [00:47:00] Flakes.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, you'd have to card people who want to buy popsicles and stuff. I mean, you would just have to card-

Nick Pell: Yeah ...

Jordan Harbinger: for everything. It just doesn't make sense.

Nick Pell: There was an attempt by the FTC to restrict advertising to kids in the '70s. In fact, one of the biggest things they were going after with that was ads for sugary cereal.

Jordan Harbinger: Really? So what happened with that?

Nick Pell: The proposal was to outright ban marketing any products to young children, and specifically to ban sugary cereal ads for somewhat older children. It would also have required counter-advertising that informed kids about diet and nutrition. There was such a huge backlash against this.

That the FTC was stripped of a ton of their powers and explicitly banned from attempting to regulate advertising to children.

Jordan Harbinger: Wow, are there seriously zero laws prohibiting or even regulating advertising to children then?

Nick Pell: There's some. The Children's Television Act limits the amount of commercial time during children's programming to 10 and a half minutes per hour on [00:48:00] weekends and 12 minutes per hour on weekdays. It also prohibits host selling, where characters from a show promote products during that same show, and this is to prevent kids from confusing content with advertising.

Jordan Harbinger: Interesting. So kids don't get confused when SpongeBob starts telling them to smoke Winstons.

Nick Pell: There's also some restrictions on tracking data for advertising, and there are also significantly higher standards for truth in advertising when you're advertising to kids.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay, so assume Jerry Seinfeld is listening to this right now, and he's convinced that cereal's bad for him.

He doesn't want to give it up, but he does want to make more mindful choices about what he's eating. What do you say to him and others like him, or people who don't have the time to make their kids a protein bomb before school every day but want to give their kids something a little better than what they're getting?

Nick Pell: Cereal isn't evil, but it is junk food, so I'd say the first thing is to start having it as a special treat and not a staple of your diet. If you [00:49:00] can't do that, look for low-sugar cereal that's less than seven grams per serving. When I have cereal, I have a, a weakness for granola, which is actually horrible for you.

Jordan Harbinger: Really?

Nick Pell: Yeah, because it's loaded with fat- Oh, yeah ... which I don't think is because of the oils, as she said.

Jordan Harbinger: Mm.

Nick Pell: Anyway, I add Greek yogurt instead of milk because it's lower in fat and higher in protein. Look for protein cereals, and if they don't have them at your local store, you can get them off Amazon or other websites.

You might find that you think they taste a little weird or have a different texture. Give it a month, and if you're still not a fan, I don't know, I guess go back to eating Frosted Sugar Bombs. But I bet if you try them for a month, you're not going to be pining for your old sugary cereal, and when you shed a few pounds, you are definitely not going to regret it.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

Nick Pell: I'd say the better thing to do is to just switch to eggs, oatmeal, and fruit. But if you're a gigantic cereal junkie, I think that this is probably going to fall on deaf ears. The thing with changing your diet is it takes some time to get used to, [00:50:00] but it will make a huge difference in your quality of life over time.

Jordan Harbinger: As somebody who has radically changed his diet for the better, I, I can absolutely confirm everything that you're saying. It's kind of like going back to if you ever smoked when you were younger or something or even when you were drinking, and then somebody offers you a cigarette now, and you're like, "Ugh, I can't...

don't even want to smell it," right? That's how I feel about how I used to eat. You know, it's just like, oh, God, I could not go back to eating most of the things I ate as a kid. It's just gross. I just don't... I'm, I've rewired my brain here. Cereal didn't become an American breakfast staple because it was the healthiest way to start your morning.

It became a staple because it was cheap, convenient, easy to mass produce, and incredibly easy to market. Entire eating habits can be manufactured. When industry, advertising, government policy, and convenience all line up behind something, it can start to feel like common sense even when it isn't. Cereal isn't sacred, despite what Kellogg's says.

It isn't necessary, also despite what Kellogg's says. I don't know anybody who stopped whacking it because of cereal. But [00:51:00] anyway, it's not a, it's not a health food. That's my point. It's processed convenience food with a powerful nostalgia factor and some of the most effective marketing ever aimed at children.

Now, this doesn't mean you can never eat it. It just means you should see it for what it is, one of the clearest examples of how an entire country can be talked into eating dessert for breakfast and calling it a balanced meal. Thanks to Nick for helping us separate the wheat from the chaff, and thanks to you all for listening.

Topic suggestions for future episodes of Skeptical Sunday to me Jordan@jordanharbinger.com. Advertisers, deals, discounts, ways to support the show all at jordanharbinger.com/deals. I'm @JordanHarbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn, and this show is created in association with PodcastOne.

My team is Jen Harbinger, Jase Sanderson, Tadas Sidlauskas, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own, and I'm a lawyer, but not your lawyer. Also, we do try to get these as right as we can. Not everything is gospel, even if it is fact-checked, so consult a qualified professional before applying anything you hear on the show, [00:52:00] especially if it's about your health and wellbeing.

Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love, and if you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use a good dose of the skepticism and knowledge that we doled out today. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn, and we'll see you next time.

Your electric car may run on clean energy, but the path from a Congolese mine to your charging cable is far dirtier than most companies want you to see.

Nicolas Niarchos: A lithium-ion battery is a type of very powerful battery that was first created in the 1970s. This battery basically have allowed modern life to be possible. They contain nickel in some cases, cobalt, lithium, lots and lots of rare metals. Your phone has at least a 20% chance of having cobalt that was dug out by an artisanal miner, somebody going using a metal bar.

Sometimes they're bare hands, sometimes they have bare feet. People climb down into these pits. The mines are super, [00:53:00] super unsafe. They collapse. These people are being essentially treated not just as very low paid workers, but essentially as conditions of modern-day slavery. There's just a kind of fatalism, I guess, to living there and working there, and for most of these people, the only life that they know is just so brutal and so dangerous.

Yeah, they don't have a choice. Some companies have pledged to clean up their supply chain, and there are so many other companies buying this stuff that don't really care about where it's coming from. So there is a direct connection between these companies and some of the tech in our pockets. We are condemning yet another generation of people to incredibly crushing situation, exporting the suffering and the pain and the environmental impacts to Africa, to Asia, to other places, and you think, God, what are we doing in our scramble for clean energy?

Jordan Harbinger: To hear why the clean energy boom may be built on one of the dirtiest supply chains on earth, check out episode [00:54:00] 1315 of The Jordan Harbinger Show.