Researchers discovered that to kids, cereal really does taste better if there’s a cartoon character on the box. They gave taste tests of generic cereals to 80 children age 4 to 8. The kids rated the cereals as tastier when they came out of a box with a character like Shrek, Dora the Explorer or the “Happy Feet” penguins. But surprisingly, kids like the taste better if the box had a name implying it was healthy, like “Healthy Bits” rather than sweet, like “Sugar Bits”.
- This must be why I prefer the brand of pork rinds that say they’re healthy and have a picture of Porky Pig on the box.
- Unlike the kids, Mel Gibson prefers “Sugar Bits”.
- Fortunately the Fiber One people had the good sense to remove the picture of Yosemite Sam holding a stick of dynamite off the side of the box.