Experts Finally Solve the Big Question About Breakfast That Everyone Has Argued Over for Years

There is a right order to do things in life. You don’t take pasta straight out of the packet and dip it in sauces. First comes boiling, then the sauces. Similarly, salad comes first, dressing later. Dish comes first, garnishing later. But there’s a dish, as old as the breakfast itself, that has bamboozled people into rethinking the correct order of things. In the 1870s, a doctor invented a recipe made with graham flour, flakes so hard that they had to be soaked overnight in milk to be eaten, The Guardian describes. Fast forward to today, Statista reports that over 214 million Americans consume breakfast cereals regularly, if not every day.

Originally invented to cure indigestion and impulsive behaviors, cereal today is worshipped as a go-to breakfast meal. For those who eat it, there’s an ecstasy in slurping down a spoonful of cold milk peppered with crunchy flakes. But the dilemma about the right order hasn’t left people’s minds. Which is the right way to prepare a bowl of cereal: To put cereal first and milk next, or milk first and cereal later? While humans are still confused, a dog named Olaf thinks that "cereal first" is the correct answer. And if you belong to the “milk first” tribe, you’re an outsider.

"This is Olaf. He just saw you pour milk into the bowl before the cereal. Thinks a little bit differently of you now," reads a tweet by the account @dog_rates. After the tweet went viral, people jumped into the comments section to share their thoughts on the age-old dilemma. @remedybyeva took the “milk first” side. “Listen, Olaf - I don’t want the cereal to drown! Stop judging me,” they wrote. @gortonsd also defended the “milk first” answer, saying, “But that’s the only way to warm up the milk in the microwave before eating the cereal. Right?”

Whereas, some people like @dzikopoulos took the “cereal first” side: “The only acceptable time for milk first is when you only have a tiny bit of milk left. Nothing worse than a nice big bowl of cereal, then only having enough milk to wet 1/4 of it.” But what do experts think? One advantage of adding milk to the top of the cereal is that the “dry cereal will truly begin to soften at one equal rate,” as chef Mark Zuckerman told The Spruce Eats. Zuckerman stressed that the “cereal first” approach is “rooted in as deep of science as gravity and global warming.”

“Only a synth puts milk in first. I'd suggest reporting that breakfast club to the Brotherhood of Steel,” u/TrumpCardWasTaken wrote in a Reddit post. u/epwnda echoed, “It’s unanimous- it’s always cereal first, then milk. I’ve tried the milk first, then cereal once, and it just seems unnatural. It’d be similar to mixing flour and water by putting water in the bowl first.” Also, pastry chefs Alex Puglisi and Katherine Sprung voted for "milk second," because, apparently, cereal is the "main dish" and it has to stay crunchy, while the milk is just an add-on.

On the flip side, the “cereal first” approach offers a serious advantage as well. If you accidentally end up pouring way too many flakes in your bowl, you can at least take a step back and replace some of the cereal in the box. This wouldn’t have been possible if milk were already in the bowl. Each approach has its own pros and cons. The ideal approach is to weigh these pros and cons and act wisely. Your cereal will thank you!