Have you ever wondered how breakfast became a moral obligation, something you were taught you should eat to be a good and healthy person? This episode explores how cereal companies, early wellness movements, and strategic public relations turned breakfast into a cultural belief worth billions.

This is the real story behind why so many of us grew up hearing that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. The idea did not begin with science or nutrition. It began with marketing.

We start in the late 1800s at Dr. John Harvey Kellogg’s sanitarium, where food was treated as a path to purity, discipline, and moral control. From there, we follow the rise of cereal, the shift to sugary convenience foods, and the emotional advertising that linked breakfast to identity, family, and success.

We also look at Edward Bernays, the public relations strategist who used psychology and manufactured authority to sell bacon and eggs to America. His work changed how we trust experts and how we decide what is “healthy” or “correct.”

The playbook continued into the modern wellness era. Influencers, product claims, curated morning routines, and aesthetic meal prep follow the same behavioral cues that once came from cereal ads. Different tools, same emotional triggers.

This episode is not about telling you what to eat. It is about understanding how belief is shaped, repeated, and sold.

Eat when you are hungry. Skip it when you are not. Your body is wiser than any marketing campaign.

Welcome to Lies We Bought.
They sold it. We bought it. Now we are unpacking it.

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