Stop paying for a box of air. How the heck do they make a measly 10 oz of cereal into such a gargantuan box? :-)

Vacuum pack (probably with a residual nitrogen atmosphere) cereal so as to be very dense. Not every cereal would be amenable to this packing process. To make it really work, however, the cereal could be coated in a food-like :-) substance that hardens in air or milk. Prolly some sort of hydrophillic compounds would work.
-- nanomid, Feb 01 2001

Or, just add more regular cereal to a regular box.
-- Vance, Feb 02 2001


Let me explain more plainly.

Vacuum packed, so as to be used immediately out of the package, no tools required. The vacuum packing is to make the cereal more dense. The cereal would tend to expand to it's prefered size *ready-to-eat*, without baking like popcorn, or water/milk like sponges which don't need the vacuum packing. Hence the vacuum packing.

The coating is not assumed, and indeed probably would not be powdered milk. Being that it tastes like #!@#. A small foil package that, when opened by hand, releases it's contents into the bowl and begin to expand 2-3x. Upon hitting the air or coming into contact with regular cold milk, would stiffen somewhat so as to have a crunchy texture.

As an aside, perhaps a small milk-paste packet could be mixed with water. The milk-paste is not dried so as to retain as much of the original milks aqueous proteins and sugars as well as fats, thus preserving most of the original taste of milk. Better than evaporated milk though? Doubt it, but it's possible.
-- nanomid, Feb 03 2001


If you compress a crunchy cereal enough to reduce its size you're going to get a powder. Try it yourself: take the bag out of a box of corn flakes (or similar) and squeeze it down to a smaller size with the cereal still in it.

If you suck the air out and the cereal is strong enough not to be pulverised by one atmosphere of pressure then it won't compress.

This idea can only work on soft but springy materials and I can't think of any cereal that fits that description (and I probably wouldn't eat one if it existed).
-- sirrobin, Feb 03 2001


Ever leave sugar puffs in milk for too long,

Swells right up!
-- xylene, Oct 07 2003



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