Limited, Inc.

Breakfast cereal is an emblem of the industrialized food system. If the system had a totem, surely the faces of Captain Crunch, Tony the Tiger, and Snap, Crackle and Pop would be displayed on it. The cereal box I opened this morning to feed my boy, Kellog’s Smacks – which features a froglike creature with big eyes, an open mouth, a startlingly human tongue, and human like hands, splashing about in milk and wheat stalks and larva shaped honey smacks, against a vivid red background – tells me that it provides me with “50 % Vit. D. Daily Needs”. I’m never sure if I should believe this kind of thing, or even really what it means – one bowl? The whole box? On the back it provides me with a printout of “ingredients” and”nutritional facts”. That the words are in English and Arabic points to the global system – this Kellogg’s cereal box has been somewhat vaguely routed or controlled by the Kellogg’s office in Casablanca. This box is a marvel as well as, given the ecological tragedy of agr