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Our Eating Habits Looking More Like Our Media Habits

Some 20% of the cookies and apple pies sold by McDonald's are at breakfast, and one of the biggest "limited time" product roll-outs in 2012 will be McBites popcorn-size chicken snack. Dunkin' Donuts sells chicken salad sandwiches at 9 a.m. Half the products Denny's sells are breakfast items. Kellogg has marketed Special K Chocolatey Delight and Rice Krispies as after-dinner-snacks. Twenty percent of people who buy Stonyfield yogurt eat it instead of dinner.

We Americans eat whatever, whenever. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are being replaced by ongoing snacking. Opportunities abound with Millennials, in particular.

"Eating weird is the new normal," says Shawn LaPean, executive director of Cal Dining at UC Berkeley, which serves students 30,000 times daily. "If students eat any square meals per day, it might be one. The rest is filled with snacks and food on the go."

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At least 35% of the meals eaten by Millennials aren't meals at all, but snacks, reports consultancy The Kruse Company. Four in 10 Millennials snack more than once daily, reports research firm Technomic. And only 5% of all consumers eat three square meals a day, says Technomic.

Read the whole story at USA Today »

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