First established in 2003 by David Roth and Rick Bacher, Cereality, a cereal café, has followed this reasoning and had success.
For $3.99, cereal-lovers can fill a bowl with two scoops of their favorite cereal, two toppings, such as malted milk balls or fruit and nuts, and unlimited milk (soy, if you please). Pajama-clad “cereologists” also offer tempting alternatives such as smoothies and cereal “bars” and “bites.” Roth says that it is this sense of personalization that appeals to—and is expected by—today’s generation of college students.
“We’re not just creating a commodity, but giving it to you like you would have it at home,” says Roth. “It’s about the emotional ties surrounding the cereal meal—the rituals and habits, the loyalties to a particular product, the mood and ambience.”
And with three out of the four prototypes on or near college campuses, including one in the student union at Arizona State University, Cereality serves many student customers. Although Cereality is not just a college concept, Roth says that “college kids make cereal a staple of their diet, so we went to them first.”
Don’t fret if there isn’t a Cereality next door—as of 2006, 26 new franchise locations are under contract and the founders have received 7,000 additional inquiries. Kiosks are opening in airports, and keep an eye out for the Cereality Sprinter, a “reinvented Good Humor truck” that might be patrolling your neighborhood soon.
So next time you have a craving, don’t reach for that three-month old Cheerios box, and have a relaxing bowl of cereal instead—or maybe a parfait—in a store made to feel like “it’s always Saturday morning.”
title: “Food For Thought” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-07” author: “Quinton Frey”
Just how much of this stuff can my baby eat?
I’ve been using a can opener to open the baby food. Can I just screw off the tops?
My baby ate the coupon. Can I still redeem it?
How do you put together a crib? We just bought one at a garage sale.
What side do you part a baby’s hair on?
Do I send in the whole bottle or just the label with the UPCs?
How many years apart should you space your children?
title: “Food For Thought” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-29” author: “Connie Johnson”
The Center for Science in the Public Interest [CSPI], a Washington-based nutrition advocacy group, recently examined the children’s menus at the 20 largest of these restaurants. The group found that every one listed fried chicken in one of its variations–think nuggets or fingers–and 85 percent offered a hamburger or cheeseburger, says CSPI senior nutritionist Jayne Hurley. And only one menu left off the french fries. The calorie counts and fat content of many items were practically heart-stopping. According to CSPI, Denny’s Cheeseburgerlicious with an order of fries weighed in at 760 calories–about half of the 1500 calories your average four-to-eight-year-old with a low activity level should get in one day–and that’s without the soda. The same meal had 16 grams of saturated-plus-trans fat, pretty much a full day’s allotment (17 grams) for the same age group. Applebee’s Grilled Cheese sandwich, by itself, totaled 520 calories and 14 grams of the harmful fat. With fries, the calorie count hit 900, and 21 grams of saturated-plus-trans fat. The Outback Steakhouse Boomerang Cheese Burger, with fries and a 14 oz. Coke, tallied in with 970 calories and 31 grams of saturated-plus-trans fat. Those are no slim pickin’s.
CSPI has been pushing for chain restaurants to make nutritional information of menu items more readily available, a move that some in the restaurant industry have indicated could be difficult to implement, given variations in food from plate to plate. Still, on Tuesday Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) will introduce the Menu Education and Labeling Act (MEAL) in the Senate. The act would require nutritional labeling on menus in larger restaurant chains. NEWSWEEK’s Laura Fording discussed CSPI’s findings with Hurley. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: Which restaurants did you look at?
Jayne Hurley: We surveyed menus from the top 20 chain restaurants [in the United States]. We actually analyzed dishes at Applebee’s, Chili’s, Cracker Barrel, Denny’s, Olive Garden, Outback Steakhouse and Red Lobster. We looked at the largest chains, but I think the results are probably applicable to items sold in thousands of other table service restaurants across the country.
So how are these restaurants doing, as far as keeping America’s kids healthy?
They are, for the most part, getting a failing grade. There are a few exceptions, but by and large, we found that children’s menus rarely went beyond cheeseburgers, pizza, fried chicken fingers and french fries. Interestingly enough, while we were in the midst of the study, Red Lobster unveiled a new kids’ menu. Unfortunately it was too late for me to do any analysis on the dishes, but we bought them and looked at them. I think they are groundbreaking. [There’s] an appetizer of either applesauce or carrot sticks and cucumbers with dipping sauce. The new entrees are snow crab legs, grilled Mahi-Mahi, grilled chicken. They come with a large portion of fresh-looking steamed vegetables. I think they deserve a lot of credit for overhauling the menu, not just tinkering with it.
Why do you think Red Lobster is making these changes?
Keith Keogh, the executive chef of Red Lobster, has said that young people have increasingly sophisticated palettes and they are trying to market to kids with more sophisticated tastes. But you have to wonder, because fast food chains may be starting to worry about possible lawsuits. McDonalds and Wendy’s, for example, are starting to test kids meals with milk and juice and fruit instead of the classic burgers, fried chicken, soda and fries. So it could be that table-service restaurants are starting to take a look at this as well.
What role do the items offered on these kids’ menus play in obesity in children?
They factor in big-time. There is a government study that shows that kids get twice as many calories when they dine out as when they eat at home. We are eating out in record numbers: more than one-third of our calories come from restaurant foods. The biggest problem is that the restaurant industry thinks that kids’ food means fast food. The entrees tend to be real known artery-cloggers like burgers, chicken fingers that are fried in partially hydrogenated oil which is bad for your heart, cheese covering the pizza, cheese covering the burgers.
Why don’t most restaurants fry things in the so-called heart healthy oils, like canola oil?
The trans-laden oils can be used over and over again. I think it’s a cost thing.
Why aren’t there more healthy choices on these menus?
I think part of the problem is that there is no labeling on these menus: no calorie information, nutritional information, saturated fat information, sodium information. People may not know what they are getting. I think that if you had calorie labeling on restaurant menus like you do in supermarkets, people could make informed choices.
Do you think there’s a really a chance that will happen?
It’s not going to happen with the little local diner down the street. But it could happen with the larger restaurant chains. Some are huge and have labs that can analyze their food. They can put that information out there, just like McDonalds. The menus are pretty standardized for each individual chain.
What would you suggest restaurants put on kids’ menus?
I think there are two ways restaurants can go. One, they can overhaul their menus and put some of these innovative new foods on them. Offer a salad when kids sit down. Parents often get a salad, why not offer a kids’ salad? Why should everything have to come with fries? Kids should be offered the same sauteed or steamed side dishes that the adults are ordering. Denny’s has this little asterisk next to its fries–if you go to the bottom of the menu and look really carefully it says you can substitute applesauce or vegetable-of-the-day for fries. That’s moving in the right direction, but I think they could make the offering a little more visible to parents.
More grilled chicken or seafood. It’s nearly impossible to walk into a restaurant without finding grilled chicken or seafood of some sort on an adult menu. But I can count the number of restaurants in our study that offer grilled chicken as an alternative to fried chicken on the kids menu: Red Lobster, Macaroni Grill and Cracker Barrel. [A spokesperson for Chili’s says the chain began offering grilled chicken on their kids’ menu last month.] Then kids get these complimentary desserts which are usually ice cream, a sundae, or pudding. They could try fresh fruit or yogurt topped with granola. If they are not going to overhaul the menu, at least improve what’s being offered. Stop frying in that partially hydrogenated oil-use a healthier oil. Try to get the salt levels down. Make sure fat-free and one-percent milk is available. Put a little less cheese on that pizza.
Aren’t these fried and high-fat foods offered to kids because that’s precisely what kids want to eat? After all, if the kids won’t eat the food, the restaurants potentially lose business.
That could be. Granted, some kids are picky eaters. But I think more adventurous youngsters, if they were exposed to healthier foods, would probably try them and eat them. Kids in the Middle East aren’t eating burgers and fries, they are eating chickpeas, kids in Asia are eating vegetables. I think you have to expose kids to healthier foods so they can develop a taste for them. We’re letting McDonald ’s develop children’s taste buds.
Would something like fried zucchini sticks be healthier than fries?
It wouldn’t because they are just frying it in that same partially hydrogenated oil they are frying the other stuff in. That would just ruin it.
Which chains would you say are doing the best with their offerings for kids?
I liked Red Lobster. At Olive Garden kids can get spaghetti with tomato sauce which is low in saturated fat and fairly low in calories. The nice thing about Olive Garden is that kids are invited to share the garden salad that comes complimentary to the table. I think that Cracker Barrel deserves some credit. They have the grilled chicken and a number of vegetables that kids can pick from.
If parents are concerned, is there anything they can do, other than refusing to take kids to these restaurants?
Certainly speak up and ask why some of these things aren’t on the kids’ menu. It certainly doesn’t hurt to put a little public pressure on chains to get some of these changes made. If you ask to substitute a vegetable for the fries, at most places they will let you do it, even though it’s not advertised. And you can always order a meal for yourself and share it with the kids. There are plenty of calories to go around.
