On the "Cereal for Dinner" Fiasco
And less expensive, painless meals for when serious cooking is out of the question.
I do it. I dare say you or someone you know does it. When days are long and adulting is especially hard, we eat cereal for dinner. And the concept of an odd bowl of your favorite flakes at night is not a problem. However, calling it affordable is misleading, as Kellogg’s CEO did recently on CNBC.
The Fact Check
“The price of a bowl of cereal with milk and with fruit is less than a dollar,” he claimed.
No, actually, it is not. While not the first to point out Pilnick’s error, I may be the first to calculate the cost of a mere cup of cornflakes:
I relied on the USDA’s weekly milk report for the price of a gallon. For Kellogg’s cereal and fruit, I shopped around online to arrive at a loose average. The damage will be greater for shoppers in California and big cities or states like Hawaii, where the factory-to-shelf distance is significant. His claim is only 60 cents off, but the bigger issue is the hidden cost of the “trend” (his word, not mine).
Many of the brand’s offerings contain more than a teaspoon of sugar per cup, are marketed to children, and aren’t dinner but dessert. The advertising campaign Kellogg’s launched last year shows a family’s dinner table littered with the brand’s sweetest options, flanked by Tony the Tiger and Toucan Sam. In reality, you can give chicken the night off and enjoy a balanced meal instead of a sugar high.
Five Cheaper, Healthier, Speedy Dinners
This is obviously not an attempt at culinary creativity. But rather swift eats to please your pickiest customers. To make sure each one lines up with cereal on simplicity and appeal, they adhere to the following:
Vegetarian, three main ingredients.
Ready in 15 minutes or less.
No chopping or unusual equipment.
So easy a tween could do it.
I calculated the per-plate totals using bonafide chef math and Walmart prices (not an endorsement, the chain is the largest, cheapest national grocer without a membership fee). You will pay more if you buy organic vegetables, premium eggs, or gluten-free grains.
Each dinner offers fiber and antioxidants and can be leveled up with any dried spices and flavor staples on hand. Not quite the diet of Italian centenarians, but surely healthier than cereal.
#1. Trustworthy Italian: Whole Wheat Spaghetti & Jarred Marinara with Sautéed Spinach ($1.19)
Employ your pantry and drizzle the pasta with olive oil, melt in butter, and crush in dried thyme, basil, oregano, and red pepper flakes. Sautéed spinach - either from fresh or frozen leaves - is as mindless as pouring it into a pan, sprinkling salt, and watching it cook. Tear a few basil leaves for garnish if you have a green thumb or a few extra bucks.
Level Up: Mix in browned Italian sausage, grated Parmesan, or a splash of heavy cream.
#2. Eat Like The King: Peanut Butter & Banana Sandwich with Baby Carrots ($1.69)
If you harbor a sweet tooth, take your hunka-hunka-burning-hunger into the kitchen and make peanut butter and banana sandwiches. With careful label reading or by shopping at a local bakery, you can find reasonably priced whole grain bread without too many additives. Bananas are the world’s cheapest fruit (environmental impacts aside), and carrots' bright orange color is a sure sign of the antioxidant beta-carotene.
Level Up: Not available, change nothing (add bacon at your own risk if you don’t want to be haunted by a hound dog).
#3. The Taco Bowl: Black Beans & Brown Rice with Sweet Corn ($1.39)
According to countless researchers and dieticians, beans possess the power to save the planet and our collective health. Look for cans with added spices (but not added salt) for built-in flavor. Buy pouches of cooked brown rice, or save more dough by batch-cooking rice and freezing it. Frozen corn is easily finished in the microwave or with a five-minute simmer. I love the smokiness of charred kernels, which you can find in the frozen section at some stores.
Level Up: Top with plain yogurt, sour cream, hot sauce, shredded lettuce, or grated cheese. Wrap in corn tortillas (a personal favorite), or make it a nacho night with chips.
#4. Takeout Night: Sweet Chili Noodles & Stir-Fry Vegetables ($1.79)
Your people will think you ordered takeout. Many grocery stores carry a frozen stir-fry vegetable blend or a “stir-fry starter.” For more fiber, try to find ancient grain, buckwheat, or brown rice noodles. You can find bottled sweet chili sauce for as little as a dollar or two.
Level Up: Fresh basil, chili flakes, ginger, lime zest or juice, fish sauce, soy sauce, or all of the above.
#5. Parisian Café: Eggs & Sourdough with Haricot Verts ($1.04)
This breakfast-for-dinner option takes you to the City of Light, where you can savor nature’s hollandaise - a warm, flowing egg yolk - with a sunny-side-up or over-easy fry. Look for “French” or “fine green beans” if you can’t find any labeled haricot verts (in French, haricot = bean, vert = green). Shop smart for sourdough by looking for fresh loaves with only flour, yeast, salt, sugar, and water as the listed ingredients.
Level Up: Blistered cherry tomatoes add juiciness and umami when in season and priced right. Cook whole tomatoes on medium-high heat until their skins shrivel slightly.
Edible Epilogue
Foods like cereal can be addicting, and I wondered how much one family would really eat in one sitting. One bowl a piece? Two encores? So, I conducted a not-so-random, completely uncontrolled trial and let my kids eat all the cornflakes they wanted for dinner. When told about this “experiment,” their eyes bulged, and mouths dropped like cartoon ostriches.
First, I served cinnamon-dusted apple slices to keep it respectable. Then, they poured their cereal and crunched and slurped unrestrained. Both ate over two and a half cups totaling $2.08 a pop (based on the pricing above). That includes their milk refills but not the collateral damage of the ensuing zoomies. I am scared to think how my night might have gone if I had bought the cereal they wanted: Cocoa Krispies and Froot Loops.
Eat + be well,
Christina