How Optimism Works in Tough Times & The Curious Story of Breakfast Cereal

When someone gets a nosebleed, what are you supposed to do? Many of us learned that you should tilt your head back. That’s not a good idea. There are a couple of key actions to take when your nose bleeds that many people don’t know or don’t do. https://www.mayoclinic.org/first-aid/first-aid-nosebleeds/basics/art-20056683 It’s easy to dismiss optimism as hoping for the best or always looking for the bright side. Yet, true optimism is so much more than that once you understand it. And adopting an optimistic mindset has been proven to make people happier, improve health and longevity and a host of other benefits. True optimism is a belief about yourself as you are about to hear from Michelle Gielan. She is a positive psychology researcher, former anchor of the CBS Morning News and author of the book Resilient Optimism (https://amzn.to/4xNeyqi). For decades, the go to food for breakfast for many people is cereal. Is it a good choice? Well, that’s going to depend on which of the many cereals you choose. Where did cereals come from and how did they become synonymous with breakfast? What’s in them? And should you really start your day with a bowl of it. Here to discuss that is Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU a leading expert on food politics. She is the author of many books, and her latest is Sugar Coated: Unboxing the Hidden Forces Shaping America's Favorite Breakfast Food. (https://amzn.to/46NqQTL). Everyone knows walking is good for you. But there is a particular time when a walk or even a leisurely stroll can pay big dividends. And the right time to take that stroll depends on when you eat. https://health.clevelandclinic.org/walking-after-eating PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS MONARCH: Write your own money story with Monarch! Use promo code SYSK at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Monarch.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ to get your 1st year of Monarch Core half off at just $50 TREES. COM: Right now, ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Trees.com ⁠⁠⁠⁠have great deals on planting essentials, up to half off on select plants. And listeners to our show get 20% OFF their purchase when using the promo code SYSK at checkout. VINTED: Ready to clean out your closet and make some extra money? Download the Vinted app for free and start listing! With no seller fees, you keep every dollar you earn and for a limited time, enjoy free shipping in the US on Vinted. WAYFAIR: Ready to upgrade your home for way less? Head to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Wayfair.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ right now to shop all things home and get your space ready for less. QUINCE: Find your next Fall favorites at Quince! Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Quince.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too! DELL: Built for those who want better. The Dell XPS, built for you! PLANET VISIONARIES: In partnership with The Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, this is Planet Visionaries. Listen or watch wherever you get your podcasts! KA'CHAVA: Ka’Chava’s new Salted Caramel is the perfect balance of mouthwatering flavor and benefits. Embrace your salty side. Go to ⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code SYSK to get 15% off your first order! INDEED: Get a $75 Sponsored Job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Indeed.com/PODCAST⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Mike Carruthers?

  I thought I had a pretty good idea of where my money was going. And then I started using Monarch. And it turns out, there's a big difference between thinking, you know, and actually seeing it all laid out in front of you. I've spent some time with Monarch now. I've connected everything and really tested it out. And I like it a lot. Your accounts, investments, savings goals, spending, they're all there in one place. But what really got my attention is Monarch doesn't just show you what's happened. It helps you spot what's happening right now. They have an AI weekly recap, and it can flag a spending spike or a change in your net worth or upcoming expenses,

• 0:44Mike Carruthers?

  things that are surprisingly easy to miss on your own. And I found that once you actually see the numbers, you look at your money differently. If you've ever wondered, where exactly is all my money going? I think you'll find Monarch pretty eye opening. Write your own money story with Monarch. Use code SYSK at monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just $50. That's 50% off your first year at monarch.com with code SYSK.

• 1:22Mike Carruthers?

  Today on Something You Should Know, it's amazing how many people don't know what to do when they get a bloody nose. Do you? Then a better understanding of true optimism that will inspire and empower you.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  Optimism doesn't just drive our well-being. It drives our performance as well, greater productivity, energy. We live longer. You're more likely to survive a cancer diagnosis. So in my opinion, it is the best investment you can make.

• 1:52Mike Carruthers?

  Also, what's the best time to go for a walk? And the story of cereal and how it became synonymous with a healthy breakfast.

• 2:02Speaker 02

  Cereal's not the worst food product by any means, but it's sure a good example of how you turn some sugary product into something that everybody thinks they must have and eat for breakfast, for heaven's sakes.

• 2:16Mike Carruthers?

  All this today on Something You Should Know.

• 2:21Mike Carruthers?

  There's probably no better endorsement for a company than this. I keep buying their stuff. That's exactly what's happening with me and Quince. It started with their clothes. I've bought sweaters, polos, pants, jeans, shoes, a belt. And Quince has become one of the first places I look when I need something new to wear. And my wife and son buy from Quince too, all the time. What keeps bringing us back is the quality and the price. Quince uses premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, merino wool. Their cashmere sweaters start at just $60. And with colder weather coming, they have down jackets

• 3:06Mike Carruthers?

  and classic wool outerwear as well. Quince prices everything 50 to 80% less than similar brands by working directly with ethical factories and cutting out the middlemen. And it's not just clothes. They have bedding, bath, kitchen essentials, and furniture. We even have Quince pillows. So this isn't one of those endorsements where I try something once because they sent it to me. We shop at Quince, and I absolutely recommend you try it. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them,

• 3:51Mike Carruthers?

  please let them know it was Something You Should Know. It's the best way to support our show.

• 3:57Speaker 03

  Something You Should Know. Fascinating intel, the world's top experts, and practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.

• 4:11Mike Carruthers?

  So if you or one of your kids or somebody gets a bloody nose, what do you do? There's a bit of misinformation floating around out there. So I'm going to tell you what the Mayo Clinic says you should do as we begin this episode of Something You Should Know. Hi, I'm Mike Carruthers. Welcome. So a lot of us were taught that when your nose starts to bleed, you should tilt your head backward. That actually is the opposite of what you're supposed to do. Tilted back does not stop the bleeding. It just sends the blood down your throat where you could swallow it, become nauseated, or even choke on it. Instead, you should sit upright, lean slightly forward,

• 4:55Mike Carruthers?

  and pinch the soft part of your nose, not the hard, bony bridge. And here's the part many people get wrong. Hold it continuously for 10 to 15 minutes. Don't keep letting go every 30 seconds to see whether it has stopped because every time you do that, you interfere with the clot that's trying to form. Most ordinary nosebleeds will stop this way. So remember, forward, not backward, and pinch the soft part. That's one of those little pieces of first aid that almost everyone will eventually have a reason to use. And that is something you should know.

• 5:37Mike Carruthers?

  Optimism sometimes gets a bad rap. We tend to think of it as looking on the bright side, seeing the glass half full, believing everything will somehow just work out. And if you're a pessimist, well, that can sound ridiculous. But there's another way to think about optimism that really struck a chord with me. Optimism isn't pretending things are better than they are. It isn't even a feeling. It's a set of behaviors, things you can actually do when life is difficult or uncertain or just not going your way. And research suggests that those behaviors can affect everything, from stress and burnout to your health, your work, and even how you handle money.

• 6:21Mike Carruthers?

  Michelle Gieland is a positive psychology researcher and speaker. She's a former anchor on the CBS Morning News and executive producer of The Happiness Advantage on PBS. She's author of a book called Resilient Optimism: The Science of Sustaining a Positive Mindset in Tough Times. Hi, Michelle. Welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

• 6:45Mike Carruthers?

  So I'd like you to define a term for me because I hear it a lot about having a positive mindset. And it's in the subtitle of your book, Sustaining a Positive Mindset in Tough Times. What is a positive mindset?

• 7:01Speaker 01

  A positive mindset is one that is fueled by hope, progress, and possibility. And so where traditional optimism is expecting good things to happen and having what could be a more fleeting feeling of, I've got this. I think I can do this. What I focus on in my research is this concept of resilient optimism, which is how you build a mindset that is strong based on the behaviors that you engage in so that your optimism stays strong when it's tested, even when the first plan fails or things don't work out as you're hoping or you are just plain exhausted. You can go back to the set of behaviors which continually strengthen your optimism and make them more resilient.

• 7:41Mike Carruthers?

  So can you give me an example of that in action?

• 7:45Speaker 01

  Yes. So I met a nurse and she worked in the ICU. The day that I met her, two patients had coded before noon and one actually didn't make it. And she showed me what her tool to keep her mindset hopeful, positive, and optimistic amidst days like this where she's not feeling at her best and not able to serve the patients as best as she would like. She would dip into the break room. In her locker was a folder. In the folder were notes and pictures from patients, caregivers, and their families thanking her for the work that she had done over the years and all the care that she had offered. The reason why she used this is this concept of recalibrating your perspective.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  Our brains are constantly inundated with the negative, with messages that tell our brain our behavior doesn't matter. It's very common these days, obviously, as we're seeing with levels of burnout, anxiety, loneliness, and depression, to feel just overwhelmed by everything going on. And so this was her move to sort of take back control of her happiness and to remind her brain the ways in which her behavior mattered. So it didn't tell her, everything in the ICU is going to be wonderful. Instead, what it did is it sent her back to the floor feeling stronger and more calibrated, so her perspective was more balanced.

• 9:03Mike Carruthers?

  And that's what you mean by optimism is not a feeling, it's a behavior. It's doing what she did.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  Yes. So I think that is literally the most freeing part of this research, which is that you do not need to feel optimistic to behave optimistically. You can engage in the simple practices. These are things that I've seen now in my 15 years working with executives that have worked to help cultivate a stronger, positive, and optimistic mindset for themselves and also for their team members. And those practices help remind your brain of progress and possibility. And that can then create an upward spiral of how you look at the world in a way that hopefully helps that feeling of optimism catch up. But you don't need that as a core ingredient to get started.

• 9:54Mike Carruthers?

  But then how do you, using your nurse example?

• 9:59Mike Carruthers?

  How do you put aside the fact that the patient died? I mean, you can read all the things and the letters and all the nice things other people have said about how wonderful you are, but you've still got this smack in the face that the patient died. How do you deal with that?

• 10:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, so resilient optimism starts from a rational outlook. So my husband, who is also a happiness researcher or positive psychology researcher, he came home from a talk one time, he says, "This is the craziest version of optimism that I've ever run into," or what people perceive as optimism. So he gave a talk at a company and the CEO afterwards came up and said, "I love the research. I want to figure out how to more deeply embed it in my organization." And the entire presentation was about optimism, how it drives performance, and how it can be a game changer in organizations. So Sean, so he offered Sean a ride to the airport. Sean gets in the guy's car, puts on his seatbelt. The CEO gets in, doesn't put on his seatbelt. And after a while, there's a seatbelt bell going off. So my husband Sean is very, very funny.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  If you've seen his TED Talk and laughed for the entire time, that's him. He's exceptionally funny. He turns to the CEO, he thinks he's making a joke, and he says, "Oh, so you don't wear seatbelts?" And the guy's like, "No, man, I saw your talk. I'm an optimist." Sean's like, "No, you're something else," right? So optimism doesn't stop cars from hitting us or reality from impinging upon us. What we talk about here in the research is rational optimism, seeking a realistic assessment of the present moment while maintaining a belief that our behavior matters, especially in the face of challenges. So for taking the nurse, for example, there will be hard days. Irrational optimism would say, "Ah, everything's going to be fine. Our patients are going to be all cured and everything's going to be good." That's irrational, and that's what makes you make terrible decisions in the future

• 11:44Speaker 01

  if you have no grip on reality in the present. Meanwhile, rational optimism says, "Hey, yes, this is challenging, and I believe that what I do next matters." Our brain has an incredible power of being able to see, it has a negativity bias. We're able to see all the problems and challenges in our life. We sometimes, in the midst of the busyness of life and the burnout we might be feeling, we lose track of the progress that we're making and those ways in which our behavior matters. So what she was consciously doing that moment is reminding her brain of the other side of the story. That gives her a fuller picture, which strengthens her and then hopefully helps her do a better job. So not ignoring reality at all.

• 12:24Mike Carruthers?

  But there are other things that can affect your, the way you look at the world, your optimism or pessimism. I mean, things like the weather, or the news, or there's other influences coming at us.

• 12:37Speaker 01

  I did a series of studies with Arianna Huffington, looking at the impact of negative news on the brain. In the first study, we just exposed people to three minutes of negative news, and then the control group was three minutes of negative, of neutral news. And then we tested them on a whole host of performance and mood metrics. And what we found is what you would expect, which is that when people were exposed to just three minutes of negative news, they experienced a drop in some of those metrics. What made the study amazing is that we actually tested them six to eight hours later, six to eight hours after exposure. So as they're closing their laptop at the end of the day, or they're picking up their kids from school, those that had been exposed to just three minutes of negative news had a 27% increased likelihood of reporting their day as negative.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  And that's dramatic, but here's the hopeful part. We then ran a follow-up study. We found that when you don't just expose people to problems, but you go on to append a solution or a set of solutions that they could themselves engage in to help solve that problem, just get them thinking about it. We found that those people exhibited 20% better creative problem-solving skills later on. So just getting people to think about the solutions makes them smarter and better. And as leaders at organizations, as a parent who's guiding their kid through some challenges they're going through in school, just having those conversations around what they can do about it transforms the brain and fuels their performance.

• 14:01Mike Carruthers?

  There is something, I've noticed, very alluring or contagious about pessimism. You know how, you know, a group of people in a room, one person can just suck the air out of the room? It's a lot harder for an optimist to bring everybody up. They can do it, but it's easier to bring everybody down.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  Yes, for years, I was asked, "Who's more powerful? Is it the positive person, or is it the negative person when it comes to creating culture around them?" And so I scoured the research, two decades of it. And what I found, it's actually, it's not the most positive person, but it's not the most negative person either. It's the person who's most expressive of their mindset. So I think that's really helpful for optimists or people who are trying to cultivate a more rationally optimistic mindset, is that you actually have tremendous power to influence the people around you. It's constantly happening all the time. We just sometimes forget our power. There was a phenomenal study done at the University of California, Riverside. And there, they took groups of strangers, so sets of three people who didn't know each

• 15:09Speaker 01

  other, put them in a room for two minutes to sit together in silence. And they tested their mood and mindset before and after those two minutes. And what they found over and over with the groups of people was that the person in the room who had, who was the most non-verbally expressive of their mood and mindset, actually significantly influenced the mood and mindset of the other two people. And what I mean by that is, the person who, if they were sitting there and they had a scowl on their face, or they looked otherwise negative, they actually made the other two people feel more negative. Meanwhile, if they were relaxed or smiling, they actually made the other two people feel more positive. So that is, in two minutes, in silence.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  We've seen study after study that shows that an individual has the ability to change the ecosystem around them. The thing is, though, oftentimes, we are so tuned in to that negative person who's influencing us, that we're not seeing the ways in which we are positively influencing other people.

• 16:10Mike Carruthers?

  I want to find out more about how the most expressive person is the one who influences the room, and we'll do that when we come back. A big thank you to today's sponsor, Vinted. I think most of us have what I call "someday clothes." "I'll wear that someday. That'll fit better someday. Someday, I'll have a place to wear that." Meanwhile, it's been hanging in the closet for three years. Vinted offers another possibility: Sell it. Every day, people can sell clothes they're no longer wearing and make some extra money. And they've made the process pretty painless. Take what you don't wear, list it on Vinted. Listing is quick and simple.

• 16:54Mike Carruthers?

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• 17:33Speaker 04

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• 18:04Mike Carruthers?

  We're talking about optimism, or resilient optimism, to be precise. My guest is Michelle Gieland. She's a positive psychology researcher and speaker, former anchor of the CBS Morning News, and author of the book, Resilient Optimism. So Michelle, I like what you said, that it's not necessarily, because I've always thought it was, that it's the negative person that can just suck the air out of the room, but that it's the most expressive person, optimistic or pessimistic. And that seems right, because I do know people who are optimistic and who have that energy that can really rally people together, and they're very expressive.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  We did a study with Trinity Magazine. We found that 31% of people are actually optimistic, they're not expressive of their mindset. And what I think is so powerful about that, that means one in three people sitting around you, they just need a license from you to speak up, like, "Hey, make it part of the culture. We say good things around here. We talk about the good more than the, you know, the, we complain or whatever." And so by modeling it, I think you get, you encourage other people to matching kind. Oh, and I do have to say one other thing, because I think this is so fascinating. So I did a deeper dive on this research, the data set that we have. I've been collecting now, over the last 11 years, responses from more than 25,000 business

• 19:32Speaker 01

  professionals, looking at their optimism and a host of other things, and their positive expressivity. And I found something so telling. Eight in 10 people still call themselves optimists. That stayed steady over time. But they are significantly less likely to behave like optimists. Specifically, if someone presents a new idea, they're less likely to say something positive. If they start a conversation, they're less likely to start with something positive. If they're thinking optimistic thoughts these days, they're less likely to say it to anybody else. If we don't behave like optimists, we're not sending out those signals to other people. We're not giving them evidence of progress and possibility. And ultimately, we're dampening everybody's performance.

• 20:12Mike Carruthers?

  Ain't that the truth? And everybody can relate to what you're saying. But maybe there are times where you just need to bitch and complain. You know, like, you're just fed up and you just need to get it off your chest. Is there any evidence that that's a good thing to do? Or are you better off shutting up and going, doing something else?

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Oh, anecdotally, I can tell you, that's a good thing to do. You should absolutely be in touch with your emotions. And I mean, hopefully, you do it in a socially appropriate way, in a way that's helpful to the people around you, and not just bringing everyone down. We're human beings, and so it is very natural to ebb and flow through a range of emotions. And we don't want to just stuff those inside, because then all of a sudden, we're eating a cupcake at 2:00 in the morning. You know, it shows up in other ways. What I think, where I think this research gets really powerful is just, is, and where I use it in my life, is... I go through the full range of emotions,

• 21:08Speaker 01

  but I can get back to a place of peace and capability and optimism more quickly because I employ these behaviors. So yes, go out, grab a beer with your friend and complain to your heart's content. But understand that if you bring that into the office on a regular basis, you're being toxic and it's going to have a negative effect on other people. If you're complaining at Thanksgiving dinner, guess what? No one's going to want to have Thanksgiving dinner with you anymore. So we have to be realistic about the influence we have on other people. At the same time, we don't want to deny the human experience and not be real about what we're feeling.

• 21:51Mike Carruthers?

  I often wonder if the people who very reliably start complaining and moaning and groaning, bring the room down, if they know what they're doing, if they understand the effect they're having on other people.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  Not all the time. I mean, sometimes they know they're happy to be the contrarian and all the things. But a lot of times, they don't know. They don't realize that A, it's become a habit. B, it's negatively affecting everyone else. And so it takes reminders. And sometimes it takes something as bold as someone saying, this is the effect you're having on people. So I worked with this one manager at one point during consulting engagement. And he said to me, I am totally lost. I don't know what to do here because I have one team member and we're a small team. And she just comes to meetings and destroys the mood.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  And it's having an effect on, like when we're having brainstorming sessions, we can't, we just can't get off the ground like, because she's just out of the gate. She's already complaining about stuff. And yet, she's a nice, good person, right? So he said, so we talked through what he could do with her. And, you know, he tried to lead her through some positive questions, wasn't working. And finally, I said to her, how much social capital do you have with her? How comfortable do you feel sitting her down, probably on a Friday afternoon, and saying, we all care about you. I have been thinking about your effect on this office and I want to offer you an idea or a thought. And he just put it out there. And then he gave her the weekend to think through it.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  And she came in on Monday and, you know, it was a little awkward at first, of course. But she finally, by like around lunchtime, came to him and said, I heard what she said. I heard what she said. And I'm going to, I thought about it all weekend. I'm going to try to show up differently. And to her credit, she did make a big move. So she wasn't being fake and she, because authenticity is so important with all this. But she thought, she had that separation between thinking something and just letting it come out of her mouth. And she started to employ a filter that helped her change not only how she was, what she was emoting to everybody else, but also how she saw her experience at work. She's like, actually, there's a lot of nice people here. And actually, we are making progress and stuff. And actually, these ideas people are presenting are not all terrible.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  And her perception started to change. But it took social capital from her boss and an open heart from her.

• 24:23Mike Carruthers?

  But do you think some people are just naturally optimistic? That they don't have to do the work? It just, they came pre-wired?

• 24:32Speaker 01

  There is a predisposition, sort of a genetic predisposition towards optimism. We have seen it in the research, but that is just a small part of the story. And I think that if we fall back to say, oh, well, I was born a pessimist. I'll always be a pessimist. You are shortchanging yourself the opportunity to change and to benefit. There was a study done with grumpy older gentleman pessimists. These are guys that had been practicing pessimism for seven and eight decades of their life. Researchers asked them, just catalog three good things from the day and keep up that practice daily. After two weeks, the gentleman who had tested as moderate level pessimist,

• 25:15Speaker 01

  began testing as moderate level optimist. Those that kept up the practice for six months actually began testing as even higher optimist from there. So it shows us that we can change our brain at any time. And when we do so, we see that optimism doesn't just drive our well-being. It drives our performance as well, greater productivity, energy. We live longer, you're more likely to survive a cancer diagnosis. It's literally across the board. So in my opinion, it is the best investment you can make, whether you're already genetically predisposed to higher levels of optimism or you are that grumpy old pessimist who has been doing it for a long time. It doesn't matter where your starting place is.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  There is so much room for growth, no matter what.

• 26:02Mike Carruthers?

  Well, you have a unique take on optimism that's different than I think most people think of when they think of optimism, which is, you know, look on the bright side, you know, the glass is half full. Yours is much more based in action and behavior. I've been talking with Michelle Gieland. She's a positive psychology researcher and speaker, former anchor of the CBS Morning News. And the name of her book is Resilient Optimism. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks for being here, Michelle.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Thanks, Mike, for having me. I've really had a fun time with you. Thank you.

• 26:37Speaker 04

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• 27:09Speaker 05

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• 27:40Mike Carruthers?

  If you want to understand how the food business works, take a good look at a box of breakfast cereal. It's food, of course, but it's also a carefully designed marketing machine. There are cartoons for kids, promises of vitamins and whole grains for parents, and often a surprising amount of sugar inside. And somehow, it all gets packaged together as breakfast. So how healthy or unhealthy is cereal? Is a bowl of sugary cereal better than no breakfast at all? And what can cereal teach us about how food companies influence what we eat and even what we think is good for us?

• 28:22Mike Carruthers?

  Marion Nestle is a professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU and one of the country's leading experts on food politics. She is author of several books and her latest is Sugar Coated: Unboxing the Hidden Forces Shaping America's Favorite Breakfast Food. Hey Marian, welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 28:44Speaker 02

  Oh, glad to be here.

• 28:46Mike Carruthers?

  Do we know where breakfast cereal came from? Does it have a very specific origin? I have a sense it does.

• 28:53Speaker 02

  Oh, it absolutely does. And it's an amazing one. In the late 1800s, just before 1900, John Harvey Kellogg had the idea that, he wasn't actually the first. There were other people who had done high-fiber cereals before then. But he was the first one who really was able to put it together into a form that was edible. Whole wheat is very, very hard to digest. You have to kind of pound it and shape it and cook it a little bit before people can eat it. And John Harvey Kellogg was very influenced by the Seventh-day Adventists

• 29:36Speaker 02

  and believed that if you ate a high-fiber cereal, it would solve all of your health problems. Health problems were considered to be digestive in those days. Everything followed from digestion. And so a high-fiber cereal would prevent dyspepsia, which is what they called it. And that would prevent a whole bunch of other things. And so he invented the cereal and then his brother invented cornflakes. And they had lots and lots of personal problems between the two of them about owning the property and selling the foods. John Harvey Kellogg was a health guru.

• 30:21Speaker 02

  And his brother, W.K., was much more interested in selling cereals to the masses. And he wanted to put sugar in it, lots of sugar. But his brother wouldn't let him. And the sugary cereals didn't really start until John Harvey Kellogg died.

• 30:39Mike Carruthers?

  The word cereal today, when you say that word, it means for most people breakfast cereal. But it didn't mean it then, until when it was just getting started. So what did the word cereal mean?

• 30:52Speaker 02

  Well, it meant grains, basically. It was a synonym for grains and all grains. It included corn and still does. It included rye and sorghum and all of those things. But the breakfast cereals are mainly oats, corn, and wheat. And part of what the marketing of breakfast cereals was about was, first of all, to convince Americans that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and that breakfast meant... Cold, ready to eat cereals. And they did a great job of that.

• 31:28Mike Carruthers?

  What did people eat before breakfast cereal? What was, if it wasn't bacon and eggs or waffles, what was it?

• 31:37Speaker 02

  Well, they ate whatever they could get their hands on. I mean, food was always scarce and you ate leftovers from dinner the night before. You ate what you could. Oh, I mean, if you had money, you had bacon and eggs and pancakes and things like that. But the, you know, you just, you ate whatever. You go all over the world. Lots of people don't eat breakfasts on what we consider to be breakfast cereals.

• 32:05Mike Carruthers?

  And the first breakfast cereal that was put in a box and a name was put on the box, what was it?

• 32:13Speaker 02

  I think it was something called Granula. And that was before the Kellogg cereals came out. But the mass marketed ones were the Kellogg cereals of one kind or another. The ones that were really wildly popular and sold all over the place.

• 32:31Mike Carruthers?

  And what were those?

• 32:33Speaker 02

  Well, that was Corn Flakes was one of the first. All brand dates to 1919. I mean, by, by the early 1900s, there were something like 70 cereal companies in Battle Creek, Michigan. The smaller ones died out and they were left with Kellogg's and Post. But the, you know, I mean, and then General Mills came in, but that was not necessarily in Battle Creek.

• 33:03Mike Carruthers?

  And was it popular right away, the idea of breakfast cereal?

• 33:08Speaker 02

  Well, it was popular among the wellness crowd. You know, the, John Harvey Kellogg ran a sanatorium in Battle Creek. That was a sort of famous place where people who had dyspepsia went to get their dyspepsia cured. And it was kind of an amazing place. I mean, I think Kellogg was way ahead of his time in promoting fiber. He was an early fiber maxer. But the, you know, there's a terrific movie called The Road to Wellville, which seems highly exaggerated, but is amazingly close to what that sanatorium was actually pretty much like.

• 33:52Speaker 02

  And very good books have been written about this. The, and the, it's just fascinating to read about. These were health gurus in 1900, in the early 1900s. Very much, and a lot of what they were talking about sounds very much like the wellness entrepreneurs now.

• 34:13Mike Carruthers?

  The idea of cereal being for the wellness crowd, being healthy. And I guess there are, you know, certain cereals that when I hear their names, I think, yeah, those are the healthy cereals, some granola and grape nuts and those kinds of things. But for the most part, they seem like kid food to me.

• 34:34Speaker 02

  Oh, they are. And that couldn't happen until John Harvey Kellogg died. When he died, it then became possible to dump sugar into cereals, to color them up, to market them directly to children and to do all of those things that, you know, we raise our eyebrows about now. You know, I've got a consecutive series of color copies of Fruit Loops boxes dating back to 1963. And in 1963, Kellogg introduced Fruit Loops. It was brightly colored with neon colors with petroleum dyes

• 35:17Speaker 02

  that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is trying so hard to get rid of now. And succeeding to a considerable extent. And loaded with sugar. And a tablespoon of sugar per ounce, it was, that's half the calories and half the weight.

• 35:36Mike Carruthers?

  Wow, a tablespoonful of sugar per ounce in Fruit Loops.

• 35:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, that's how it started. And that's most, you know, the cereal companies have, under pressure, cereal companies have tried as hard as they can to get the sugar down. And the limit seems to be about 12 grams per ounce. So the 12 grams per ounce is, okay, that's not quite 50%. It's 40% of the calories. And kids love that.

• 36:09Mike Carruthers?

  Well, who, of course, who wouldn't love that?

• 36:12Speaker 02

  Who does not? Well, I find them too sweet and they have off flavors to me from all the stuff they add to them. It was in the late 50s, early 60s that cereals were aimed specifically at children. You know, have your, your kids will have a nutritious breakfast because we've added all these vitamins. And yeah, we threw in a little sugar because otherwise they wouldn't eat it.

• 36:35Mike Carruthers?

  Well, what about those claims that they've added vitamins and things? Is that not a good thing or is that just a marketing thing?

• 36:43Speaker 02

  Oh, I think it's marketing. I mean, Americans are not vitamin deprived. They're really not. I mean, the big problem in American diets is that people eat too much. And if you're eating enough calories, you're probably getting enough vitamins unless you're not eating any vegetables at all. So I don't, I don't see these vitamins as being a problem. But the vitamins in some of the cereals are, and you're essentially, they're essentially vitamin supplemented cookies is what they are.

• 37:15Mike Carruthers?

  What about the cereals that you don't necessarily consider sugary kid cereals? Like Corn Flakes. Corn Flakes to me is not, but there is sugar in it, right?

• 37:28Speaker 02

  Oh, very little. You know, very, very little as compared to the kid cereal. I think there's four grams per ounce or something like that. It's, I would consider that minimal sugar.

• 37:41Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah. And then Frosted Flakes, which is the same thing, only with lots of sugar, I guess.

• 37:45Speaker 02

  Well, that'll be in the 11 and 12 grams per ounce category. The, you know, and that's the industry standard for sweetened cereals. You know, I'm, I like post shredded wheat, the mini ones. And it doesn't have any sugar in it at all. It's, has one, it's a one ingredient cereal, wheat. And I add my own sugar. I think it needs, I think a little sugar helps, but I'm not adding 12 grams.

• 38:14Mike Carruthers?

  You know, it's interesting to me, and the same is true with soda, is when they say that there's all this sugar in it. Why does it have to, because as you say, when you have a bowl of shredded wheat and you sprinkle a teaspoon of sugar on it, it seems like plenty. So why isn't it plenty when they put sugar in it when they make it?

• 38:35Speaker 02

  Well, I think they're covering up the off tastes that must come from the other additives that are in there. Or actually, it's the vitamin, vitamins don't taste good. If they're, you know, if supplemental vitamins, they really don't. So they have to cover up the vitamin and mineral taste. And the sugar, and the sugar does that. You know, the shredded wheat doesn't have vitamins in it, so they don't have to cover up anything.

• 39:06Mike Carruthers?

  As you say, the, the marketing to kids started in the 60s, I think. And so what happened between the late 1800s and the 60s? Was cereal just kind of humming along and some people bought it and some people didn't?

• 39:21Speaker 02

  I mean, yeah, they bought it. I mean, the, I have facsimiles of All Brand going back to 1919. And in 1919, it was already being advertised as something that would help your digestion and prevent dyspepsia and that sort of thing. And, and that was, you know, that had a little bit of sugar in it, but very, very little. And All Brand still has only a little. It really hasn't, I mean, that's a recipe that hasn't changed. Corn Flakes recipe hasn't changed in all of these years. And the original Cheerios recipe hasn't really changed,

• 40:01Speaker 02

  except that Cheerios has expanded into 20 different versions, many of which are loaded with sugar.

• 40:07Mike Carruthers?

  But the original does, has sugar, but it's not tons of sugar.

• 40:11Speaker 02

  It's just not much. It's just not much.

• 40:13Mike Carruthers?

  And Cheerios was, and is still a very popular brand with people. So it is possible to make a cereal without a lot of sugar, like Corn Flakes and Cheerios, that people seem to like.

• 40:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, or Wheaties. Those are the, those are the old ones and people do like them and sometimes they add sugar. I like fruit with mine. And they still work, but the big sellers, the big sellers are the sugary cereals, the really big sellers.

• 40:44Mike Carruthers?

  And that started in the 60s, probably not unrelated to the fact that that's when television was really taking off.

• 40:50Speaker 02

  Sure, because they could advertise. There's a whole book about advertising cereals on television. Somebody wrote a book about it.

• 40:58Mike Carruthers?

  And the cereal, the cereal box itself was a big marketing tool, I suspect.

• 41:04Speaker 02

  Oh, right from the beginning. They're big. You know, we call them billboards, because every single thing that is on that box is either there because it has to be there by FDA regulation, or it's got to have a QR code for retailers. The rest of it is all marketing, and it's an enormous amount of marketing space. So every single thing that's on the front of the package is designed to attract people to buy it. And the back of the package has, you know, all the stuff you can read while you're eating your cereal in the morning. Games for kids.

• 41:45Mike Carruthers?

  I sense from listening to you talk that you're not a big fan of the sugary cereals, but what, but what's the big deal if you have them once in a while?

• 41:56Speaker 02

  Oh, once in a while, it's not a big deal at all. That's true of any food. But the question that comes up instantly is, when did it become okay to feed kids vitamin-supplemented cookies for breakfast? I mean, you wouldn't think, or most people would not think about, giving their kids cookies for breakfast. You know, that's, you want your child to have something nutritious with a little protein in it, and, you know, something that's going to get them through the next few hours when they're in school. You certainly wouldn't feed them dessert, and this, these are essentially desserts.

• 42:36Mike Carruthers?

  I don't think in the 60s and 70s, people thought a whole lot about this. The theory was, or the thinking was, it's, the kids should have a, have breakfast, and cereal's easy, and so that's a good breakfast.

• 42:50Speaker 02

  Oh, and don't forget the milk.

• 42:53Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, and the milk.

• 42:55Speaker 02

  This was, cereal was an excuse to get kids to drink their milk, because the word was out that dairy products were essential, and that kids needed three glasses of milk a day, preferably adults, too. And so this was a way to get kids to get milk, and get all the vitamins and minerals that are in milk, and, you know, then have the cereal, too, and they would be getting, you know, some things that they need. But most of the kids' cereals are very low in fiber. You know, and one of the reasons for eating cereal is fiber.

• 43:33Speaker 02

  And by 1970, there were, there were already congressional hearings complaining about the amount of how non-nutritious breakfast cereals were, how they were being marketed to kids, and how they had way, way, way, way too much sugar in them. And that was 1970, congressional hearings.

• 43:58Mike Carruthers?

  Are cereals as popular today as ever, or have people kind of gotten the message and maybe backed off, or what?

• 44:07Speaker 02

  Well, it turns out that cereal sales are way down, and it's an enormous problem for the industry. And they're way down for the same reasons that all other foods are down. You know, the food industry is undergoing a period of decreasing sales, because Robert F. Kennedy Jr. thinks that they're poisoning America. People are concerned, I think rightfully, about ultra-processed foods and want to cut back on ultra-processed foods. Inflation has made the cost of cereal amazing. It's just doubled in the last few years.

• 44:49Speaker 02

  And then there are GLP-1 drugs, and people who are on GLP-1 drugs are eating less, which is very bad for business. And they're also cutting down on things that have a lot of sugar in them. And then on top of that, everybody's lifestyle makes, getting a bowl of cereal, getting a bowl down, putting cereal in it, adding milk, eating it with a spoon, and then having a bowl to wash afterwards, just seems to like a lot of trouble to a lot of people, who much prefer Pop-Tarts, or something else that they can just grab and go.

• 45:31Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah. Well, I mean, that's always been the thing, is, is it better to not eat any breakfast, or is it better to eat a sugary breakfast?

• 45:42Speaker 02

  Oh, well, that, you know, always it's a question of what you're comparing it to, and what else you're eating. If the only sugary food you had during the day was your cereal for breakfast, nobody would be the slightest bit concerned about it. But if everything you're eating during the day is loaded with sugar, and, and is not a vegetable, you know, then you're going to be concerned about the overall balance in the diet. You know, the secret of good nutrition is eating a balanced diet, and that means foods from every possible group, and great variety, in not very large portions.

• 46:21Mike Carruthers?

  My understanding is that it was one of the Kellogg Brothers, or somebody in the cereal business, marketing people, that came up with this idea that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

• 46:33Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, they did a lot of research on that. And it's interesting, because I'm not a breakfast eater, you know. And I, I, you know, at various times in my career, I've given lectures, and people have asked what I had for breakfast, and I say, well, I don't really eat breakfast. I don't get hungry till about 11 o'clock in the morning. And people are just shocked, absolutely shocked, a nutritionist who doesn't eat breakfast. But I've had people come up to me with tears in their eyes, saying, "Thank you. I never want to eat first thing in the morning, and I always just forced myself, and now I won't anymore." I thought, well, I've done some good.

• 47:15Mike Carruthers?

  So what's your message here, to wrap things up? What do you, what do you want people to understand about this business?

• 47:21Speaker 02

  The cereal business is like any other food business, and its purpose is to sell cereals. So in a sense, using cereals as an example, it's, you generalize from that to every other food product. It's just that, you know, I picked cereals with my co-author to, because the boxes are so amazing, and so much is known about them, and the marketing is so obvious. The way the companies use nutrients, the way they use health claims, the way they use

• 48:00Speaker 02

  the political system, the way they market to special population groups, are all examples, you know, just beautifully illustrated examples of how food marketing works, regardless of the health quality of the product. Cereal's not the worst health product, you know, the worst food product by any means. But it's sure a good example of how you turn some sugary product into something that everybody thinks they must have, and eat for breakfast, for heaven's sakes.

• 48:33Mike Carruthers?

  I imagine there are very few people listening to us right now who don't have at least one box of cereal in their kitchen somewhere, so it's really interesting to hear the story of breakfast cereal and what's really in them. I've been talking to Marion Nestle. She is a professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU, and one of the country's leading experts on food politics. The name of her book is Sugar Coated: Unboxing the Hidden Forces Shaping America's Favorite Breakfast Food. There's a link to her book in the show notes, and Marion, always a pleasure. Thank you.

• 49:08Speaker 02

  Thank you very much. Happy to be here.

• 49:10Mike Carruthers?

  If you're going to take a walk sometime during the day, right after eating may be one of the best times to do it. Research has found that walking for as little as two to five minutes after a meal can help keep your blood sugar from spiking as high as it would if you simply stayed seated. The reason is surprisingly simple. When your muscles start working, they use some of the glucose that's entering your bloodstream from your meal. You don't have to walk fast, or work up a sweat, or even go very far. Even a leisurely trip around the block can make a measurable difference.

• 49:50Mike Carruthers?

  And newer research suggests a post-meal walk may also help food move through your stomach more efficiently, reducing that overly full feeling some people get after eating. So instead of immediately settling in on the couch after dinner, taking even a short stroll may be one of the easiest and healthy habits you can adopt. And that is something you should know. And if you're taking that walk with somebody else, you might tell them about this podcast, so they can listen, and we get a new listener. I'm Micah Rutherford. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

• 50:25Speaker 04

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• 50:56Speaker 06

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