Sunday, December 16, 2007

kids' cereal scam



one of many recent examples of candy brands and companies attempting to branch out into other products. cereal aimed at kids make good money off of their brand recognition, which does a great service to the fattening of the american populace. but kids are not the only vulnerable ones. one of the most popular ice creams recently at the retirement home i work at is "butterfinger crunch."

a walk down the cereal aisle in a poor neighborhood is more egregious in this regard. i had to look around in my local stop and shop to find these highly produced, visually manipulative cereals. many cereals there were aimed at health conscious middle and upper class adults, who will have little truck with candy disguised as cereal. the packaging is sober and respectable and replete with words like bran and nutrition. but i remember in inwood in manhattan, my god, the cereal aisles there were frickin' ridiculous. even the "grey ladies" of cerealdom, the grape nut-type products whose packaging has hardly changed in 50 years, were tarted up with impish cartoon characters and multi-colored marshmallows.

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