Life is a breakfast cereal produced by the

Quaker Oats Company The Quaker Oats Company, known as Quaker, is an American food conglomerate based in Chicago. It has been owned by PepsiCo since 2001. History Precursor miller companies In the 1850s, Ferdinand Schumacher and Robert Stuart founded oat mills. Sc ...

, a subsidiary of PepsiCo. It was formerly made of

oat The oat (''Avena sativa''), sometimes called the common oat, is a species of cereal grain grown for its seed, which is known by the same name (usually in the plural, unlike other cereals and pseudocereals). While oats are suitable for human con ...

s, soy protein concentrate, sodium caseinate and sugar, but now also contains corn flour,

whole wheat flour Whole-wheat flour (in the US) or wholemeal flour (in the UK) is a powdery substance, a basic food ingredient, derived by grinding or mashing the whole grain of wheat, also known as the wheatberry. Whole-wheat flour is used in baking of breads ...

, and

rice flour Rice flour (also rice powder) is a form of flour made from finely milled rice. It is distinct from rice starch, which is usually produced by steeping rice in lye. Rice flour is a common substitute for wheat flour. It is also used as a thickening ...

. It was introduced in 1961 and has a brown checked square pattern. , with the advent of numerous specialty varieties, the original cereal is now marketed as "Life Original Multigrain Cereal".

Ingredients

Life contains whole grain oat flour, corn flour, sugar, whole wheat flour, calcium carbonate, salt, baking soda,

tocopherols Tocopherols (; TCP) are a class of organic chemical compounds (more precisely, various methylated phenols), many of which have vitamin E activity. Because the vitamin activity was first identified in 1936 from a dietary fertility factor in rats, ...

(preservatives), and a mixture of

B vitamins B vitamins are a class of water-soluble vitamins that play important roles in cell metabolism and synthesis of red blood cells. Though these vitamins share similar names (B1, B2, B3, etc.), they are chemically distinct compounds that often coexi ...

. http://www.foodpro.huds.harvard.edu/foodpro/label.asp?RecNumAndPort=031036*1&dtdate=1/23/2015&locationName=Dining%20Hall&locationNum=15 As of 2021, the cereal no longer contains the preservative BHT.

Advertising

When Life cereal was first introduced in the 1960s, the original slogan was "The most useful

protein Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, res ...

ever in a ready-to-eat cereal". The original

mascots A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name. Mascots are also used as fic ...

(in commercials narrated by

Paul Frees Solomon Hersh "Paul" Frees (June 22, 1920November 2, 1986) was an American actor, comedian, impressionist, and vaudevillian. He is known for his work on Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Walter Lantz, Rankin/Bass, and Walt Disney theatrical cartoons during ...

) were

munchkin A Munchkin is a native of the fictional Munchkin Country in the Oz books by American author L. Frank Baum. They first appear in the classic children's novel ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' (1900) where they welcome Dorothy Gale to their city in ...

-like characters. Life was popularized during the 1970s by an

advertising campaign An advertising campaign is a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication (IMC). An IMC is a platform in which a group of people can group their ideas, beliefs, and conc ...

featuring " Little Mikey", a hard-to-please four-year-old boy portrayed by John Gilchrist. The commercials featured the slogan "He likes it! Hey, Mikey!" said in surprise after his brothers see Mikey actually enjoying the cereal. The ad campaign was created by ad firm Doyle Dane and Bernbach. The campaign ran from 1972 to 1986, becoming one of the longest-running television advertisements in history. As recently as 1999, the commercial was included in a list of "memorable ads". A subsequent commercial repeated the scenario with the same dialog, but used lumberjacks instead of children.

Varieties

In 1978, "Cinnamon Life," developed by Ed Heaton, was introduced followed shortly thereafter by "Raisin Life". Today, Cinnamon Life accounts for one-third of total Life sales. Raisin Life sold poorly and was discontinued in the mid-1980s. In 2002, a version called "Baked Apple Life" was released. "Honey Graham Life" was introduced in early 2004, "Life Vanilla Yogurt Crunch" in late 2005, and "Life Chocolate Oat Crunch", in 2006. All three were discontinued by 2008. In 2008, Quaker introduced "Maple & Brown Sugar Life". In the fall of 2016, "Vanilla Life" cereal was released. Original Life has been reformulated several times since its introduction.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Life (Cereal) Quaker Oats Company cereals Products introduced in 1961