Fun Facts About Cereal

Fun facts about cereal, from the American Cereal Council:

• Cereal was invented when colonial housewives started serving up popcorn with sugar and cream for breakfast.  Yum!
  
• Of the more than 294 million people in the U.S, 49% start their day with a bowl of cereal.
  
• The word cereal comes from Cerealia, the name of ancient Roman ceremonies that honored Ceres, the goddess of grain.
  
• The average American eats 160 bowls of cereal each year.
  
• One bushel of wheat will make 53 boxes of cereal.
  
• 85% of all protein consumed throughout the world is provided by grains such as wheat, corn, rice, millet, rye, barley, and sorghum – those that are often found in cereal.
  
• The first ready-to-eat breakfast cereal was invented in 1863 by James C. Jackson. It was a form of whole grain flour dough baked into dry leaves, broken into chunks and baked again, and then ground into still smaller chunks.
  
• U.S. and Israeli researchers have just found strong evidence that humans refined wheat and barley into cereal 23,000 years ago. If true, the discovery suggests humans were processing grains long before hunter-gather societies developed agriculture.
  
• Astronauts from Apollo 11 boosted their brain power while in space with a cereal breakfast. The cereal was mixed with fruit and pressed into cubes since the lack of gravity kept the astronauts from pouring it into a bowl with milk.
  
• Breakfast cereal is the third most popular item sold in grocery stores after carbonated beverages and milk.
  
• The USDA recommends 6 to 11 servings of grains in a daily diet and a bowl of cereal is a source of grains.
  
• There are 2.7 billion packages of cereal sold every year – that’s enough boxes to wrap around the Earth thirteen times.

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