Good news Kid’s

Apple jacks don’t taste remotely like apples.

In fact if you scan the ingredients on a box of the sugary salty breakfast concoction you will discover apples way down on the list. The Kellogg Company (K E double L good to you each morning) is even running an ad campaign that sort of pokes fun at the idea of apples.

If you watch any TV show aimed at the pre-teen crowd you may have seen the little drama. Bad apple is in a race with happy cinnamon stick to be the first to get into a bowl of Apple jacks.

Even though the sour, grouchy, meddling, scheming Bad Apple tries to cheat, the laid back, happy cinnamon stick (emphasis on MON, as in Rasta speak…hmmmm)  wins.

The tag line in the spot says: “Apple Jacks don’t taste like Apples because the taste of sweet cinnamon is the winner, Mon.”

Kids nowadays just naturally shie away from fruits and vegetables. Studies show that almost half of the kids on an average day consume no fruit at all.

A spokeswoman for Kellogg Company (the best to you each day from Battle Creek Michigan) said that the ads for Apple Jacks are “not intended to disparage apples or discourage kids from eating apples. The ads are a lighthearted and fun way to communicate the cinnamon great taste of the cereal.”

So why couldn’t the laid back cinnamon stick be buddies with Mr. Apple? Maybe Mr. Stick could turn Mr. Apple on, so to speak, to the sweet taste of cinnamon and they both could be laid back and happy.

Or maybe I am reading too much into this.

When I was a kid cereal had to have two things going for it to be my fave. First and most important is it had to have a cool prize. I loved the little baking soda submarine. And it had to make the milk at the bottom of the bowl taste sweet on its own. The sweeter the better because Mom would guard the sugar bowl.

As George Carlin once said: “What wine goes with Fruit Loops?”