Shredded Wheat. And milk. The lifeblood of a nation, some say.
Recently, however, our prime minister has had things to say on this cereal of sporting champions. Well, he actually had things to say about the future of his political career, but I wasn't really interested in that bit. I was more interested in his thoughts on Shredded Wheat. To wit: Eating two is apparently "wonderful", but three "might be too much".
And this was – to my mind – a myth. One that circulated even back in the days when real men had mullets and moustaches.
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There was only one thing to do: Put this theory to the test.
I could eat three. But this is BuzzFeed. We raise the bar here. I was going to eat FOUR Shredded Wheat for breakfast right in the office, and no bugger was going to stop me.
Here are the ingredients of Shredded Wheat.
MANUFACTURED IN A FACILITY THAT PROCESSES NUTS.
There's hardly any fat in a Shredded Wheat. You could eat about 20 of them before you started going over your recommended fat intake. It's a strange beast.
Shredded Wheat come in packs of two. It's almost like they're trying to tell us something.
Actually, Shredded Wheat are pretty big. Three sort of fit in a bowl, but not really.
The fourth would have to be eaten independently.
People around me were getting apprehensive.
Some of my co-workers went crazy.
Here's m'colleague Ryan trying to eat three. He's American, and was so convinced about how easy it is to eat three he tried to eat them all at once without any milk. Sadly for Ryan he pretty much fell at the first hurdle.
With one down, I was feeling pretty good about the world.
But as I ate more and more, I could see exactly why you're not supposed to eat more than two Shredded Wheat.
In all honesty, there's no cereal more boring in taste. Its strength is its curse. It tastes of nothing. It gives you what it says on the tin.
And what it says is wheat.
Modern politics is bland, effective, presentable, and entirely lacking in imagination. Shredded Wheat is the cereal of our time.
After two, I felt sated. That was as good as it got. After two and a half, I felt nothing. By three my mouth was in a dark place. My tongue was bored. I felt slightly depressed. I imagined tastes that weren't really there. There was no taste. None at all.
By three and a half my mind had turned blank. All I could do was chew, and chew, and wait for the chewing to stop, but it didn't stop. Wheat followed wheat followed wheat. I had eaten too much, and yet I hadn't eaten anything.
I ate four Shredded Wheat for breakfast. As I type these words it is midday. I now feel bloated, flatulent, and depressed. More so than usual for a journalist.
Nevertheless, I did it.
There you have it. David Cameron was right.
I came out of the experience tired, shaky, and despondent. I wondered what the long-term effect would be.
