Breakfast cereal in some markets, and steady and continued growth throughout its history. The number of different types of breakfast cereals in the U.S. has grown from 160 (1970) to 340 (1998) to 4,945 (2012). In this highly competitive market, breakfast cereal companies have developed cereals in an ever-increasing number of flavors. Although many plain wheat and oat based cereals exist, other flavors are sweet. Some of the most popular brands include freeze-dried fruit and others are flavored like dessert or candy. Cereal, oatmeal and porridge quickly became an important breakfast component in North America. Barley was a common grain used, though
Breakfast of Champions copyright systems as he notes meticulously that "Breakfast of Champions" is a registered trademark of General Mills, Inc. for its breakfast cereal products, and that his use of the term is not "intended to disparage their fine products." Vonnegut refers to himself as "Philboyd Studge" in the preface, a name which he claims his friend Knox Burger associated with cumbersome writing. The name appears to have been borrowed from a short story by Edwardian satirist Saki. ("", describes the success of the eponymous breakfast food through bizarrely counter-intuitive advertising.) According to an article in the New York Times Magazine in