“Trix Are for Kids!”

What did you have for breakfast this morning? I had McCann’s steel-cut oatmeal with strawberries and a little pomegranate kefir. Nutritious, delicious, and filling, and part of my very conscious effort to break away from the unhealthy coffee and croissant habit I’ve been enjoying since I was a young Francophile living in Paris. Not that I deny myself completely. You can get a perfect croissant and latte in Los Angeles, most notably at Susina on Beverly and La Brea, one of my primary writing haunts. I also like the organic soft-boiled eggs served with amazing homemade bread at Le Pain Quotidien in Beverly Hills, site of much of the celebrity eavesdropping I’ve inappropriately shared on this blog. And if you’re really going whole hog (and don’t mind looking like one), nothing beats the pancakes or French toast at DuPar’s in Farmer’s Market.

Do they still say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, or was that part of some Kellogs-funded propaganda campaign? It was always my favorite meal as a kid. On weekends, my mother would make us hot cereal (at the time I preferred the smooth, lily white goodness of Cream of Wheat to the rough-hewn gummy Quaker Oats, despite my nephews’ national shilling of the product), or matzah brei, something I still make for my daughter at least once a week, or my mother’s specialty, eggs in the hole.

But during the week, our standard morning fare was the heavily sugared, day-glo colored, artificially flavored breakfast cereals of the 1960s. My sister Sue just sent me this classic photograph of the two of us enjoying our morning bowl of Trix at the breakfast table. As luck would have it, my sister is even more of an OCD archivist than I am, and she finally figured out how to use her scanner. This photo fascinates me on several levels. First of all, how old are we, the image looks as ancient as a Civil War Daguerreotype! Even though we’re looking at the camera, I love the candid nature of the shot. What possessed my mother or father to get out the old Polaroid that morning and snap this photo? How I wish we had more of these images from daily life instead of the lined-up portraits taken at weddings and Bar Mitzvahs. I could stare at that cool early 1960s kitchen for hours. Of course it was eventually “improved” to remove all traces of wood and other natural products. Sigh.

The photo was taken when we still lived in our two-bedroom apartment at 5842 N. St. Louis in Chicago. When I was in first grade, we moved a few blocks away to what was a mansion by comparison, but is it just nostalgia talking when I say that we were never happier as a family than when we were in those cramped quarters on St. Louis? My brother, sister, and I shared one large bedroom, our twin beds lined up in single file against the wall. I never longed for my own room back then, and I remember being quite lonely when we moved on up to the Big House (where my father still lives today). I love that the box of Trix is prominently displayed on the table and wish I could show it to my mom who playfully denied most of the facts in an essay I published years ago about growing up on junk food.

Trix was probably my favorite sugary cereal. I loved how the fluorescent colors of the little balls would create colored swirls in my milk. I remember carefully moving the pieces of Trix in my bowl to create words with the food coloring that was leaching off the product. My pièce de résistance, following one of the annual viewings of “The Wizard of Oz,” was spelling “Surrender Dorothy!” in my cereal bowl. In addition to Trix, my steady diet of breakfast cereals included Cap’n Crunch, Apple Jacks, Sugar Crisps, Froot Loops, Sugar Smacks, Frosted Flakes, Cocoa Puffs, Sugar Puffs, Corn Pops, and those yummy Lucky Charms, which every Baby Boomer knows, were “so magically delicious.” Of course I mastered the art of avoiding those nasty oat bits with my spoon and going straight for the soggy marshmallow treats including pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, and green clovers. Here’s a commercial for Trix that may have been playing on our giant black-and-white high-fidelity General Electric console while the photograph above was being taken:

Make no mistake, these cereals were poison, and I’m tempted to organize a class-action suit against all 1960s parents who were suckered into purchasing these science experiments for their children. But oh, how I loved them. When my parents started feeling guilty about our daily sugar intake, we’d begrudgingly eat the “health food” alternatives they’d place before us, such as Rice Krispies, Raisin Bran, plain Corn Flakes, Cheerios, Special K, Life, Chex, or the dreaded Shredded Wheat. These products still contained copious amounts of sucrose, believe me, but since each piece wasn’t officially “frosted,” we’d add so much extra granulated sugar that our bowls looked like fields of glistening snow drifts.

I guess a lot of these cereals still exist, but I can’t imagine giving any of them to my 12-year-old daughter. Not that I’m judging any of you who do so, it’s just that I don’t want to stunt my child’s growth or make sure her teeth rot before the age of 40. Oh well, I should just shut up, I resorted to plenty a Pop Tart in Leah’s younger days when I didn’t have the energy to make a real meal. And I’m not so sure that the Whole Foods cereals we eat are really that much better than the sugar-based concoctions of my youth. They’re certainly not as colorful.

Comments

[Mindy]

Didn't Lucky Charms also have blue diamonds? I had an audio flashback as I read your words, and I wanted to add another shape.

[Julie]

Oh I loved this posting. I remember that commercial like it was yesterday. I even remember voting to allow the rabbit to get some Trix cereal.
I ate lots of this stuff, but for reasons I don't understand Mom couldn't bear to watch us eat Capt. Crunch. We only bought it the one time. . .

[Heather]

That's great photo of you and your sister. I have been obsessively scanning my family's photos from the 1940s-1980s, and one of these days, maybe I will actually start posting them in my poor, neglected blog.

My mom didn't let us eat "sugar cereal," though it's not like the kinds we were allowed to eat were sugar-free. I was always partial to Cinnamon Life, myself, but I harbored a deep, dark desire for Cocoa Puffs because it turned the milk into "chocolate milk."

[Danny]

Mindy, you're a youngster! Those blue diamonds weren't introduced until 1975, long after my cereal heyday. Julie, I remember that vote to get the rabbit some Trix, I'm sure I voted too. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there was a higher turnout for the Trix campaign than for the Nixon-McGovern presidential race.

[Churlita]

I love that photo.

I worked at a Baker's of Paris in San Francisco in the eighties, and it took me a long time to wean myself off of almond filled croissants.

[V-Grrrl]

No sugary cereals at our house growing up, though I desperately loved Sugar-Frosted Flakes.

I've continued the family tradition and tortured my children with plain Cheerios, wheat chex, and oatmeal sweetened with honey. When we stay at hotels that have a cheap continental breakfast, they eat Froot Loops like there's no tomorrow. For them, that's a five-star establishment!

[Emily]

God,you've made me hungry. Whether it's oat meal, bagels, croissants, yogurt, pancakes, French toast, eggs cooked in any way (most especially egg in a hole), or yes, Lucky Charms or maybe Sugar Pops (notice how they're now called Pops, I think it is, as if the new name disguises the fact they're loaded with sugar) or (an even better idea) a pigfest incorporating many of these items, breakfast has always been my favorite meal. It's the wonderful meal in which you can eat as your main course what at dinner would be called dessert and get away with it.

[Yogo]

They disguise all the names now. Sugar Frosted Flakes are now Frosted Flakes of Corn. The only ones I can tolerate now are plain Cheerios--although Honey Nut Cheerios is pretty good--and plain Corn Flakes.

[Cheryl]

We were big on Cream of Wheat for breakfast, with salt and butter. Yum. The only sugery cereals I remember eating were Frosted Flakes and Lucky Charms. I loved squishing the charms between my fingers when they got a little wet. Yes, I still play with my food.

[Pearl]

Sometimes we were treated to the sugary cereals -- Froot Loops, Honeycomb, Lucky Charms, Cap'n Crunch, Frosted Flakes -- but when we filled our bowls, we HAD to mix sweet cereal with regular cereal like Cheerios, Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies.

I must've resented having to do it back then and not just have exclusively sweet cereal in my bowl, but...these days I tell my kids the same thing -- to mix the sweet with the regular cereal. As if that will cut out lots of sugar!

[LOC]

Yes, the powers that be have changed the names of cereals and many of the mascots. Sugar Crisp lost Sugar Bear. Sugar Pops became Corn Pops. While Sugar Frosted Flakes lost sugar they managed to hang on to Tony the Tiger. Fortunately, none of the sugar from inside the box has been lost. Also, I would like to add two other cereals to the list.

In the late sixties and early seventies, I ate a truly noxiously multicolored concotion called, I think, KaBoom! I think that it was taken off the market in that red dye #5 thing. Then, in the seventies, I switched to Freakies cereal which had a catchy theme song sung by cartoon monsters that had their own show on weekends. This allowed for the sublime pleasure of eating Freakies cereal even as the Freakies cavorted on television. I still remeber the theme song, "We are the Freakies. (2x) And this is our Freaky tree. We never miss a meal because we eat our cereal. We are the Freakies..."

[OldOldLady Of The Hills]

I am happy to say, I somehow missed all those poisoness sugary cereals....LOL! It was always Wheatena or Oarmeal or Eggs...!

[OldOldLady Of The Hills]

LOL...OATMEAL! Sorry...And I LOVE that picture of you and your sister!

[Jen]

Random question: were your kitchen chairs red with diamond cutouts in the backs? I can't tell for sure, but I think I can make out those cutouts. If so, they are the same chairs in my kitchen right now.
Just wondering. :)

[Erica Haley]

Dear fellow citizens of america we hearby will no longer buy the trix cereal because of the new shapes. It will be to our concern that you help us in making the new puff shapes of the Trix to be turned back into the fun loving original shapes.

[Sheila Levine]

None of those cereals are good for you, they have far too many high-glycemic carbohydrates, even the Whole Food cereals you refer to. The only thing your children should be eating for breakfast is one or two eggs and perhaps a slice of ham or a lovely ground beef patty with a low-carb hot cocoa or filtered water to drink. When sugars aren't present, tumors recede, heart function improves, and the body burns fat as energy instead of sugar. The slightest amount of carbs and the body stores all the other fat and protein you ate as FAT until the carbs are burned. Don't do it, to yourself or your kids. Shun all carbs.