Are your Grapenuts still crunchy? Wanna know why? Read on!

The other day, Marash Boy decided he wanted to have old-fashioned Grapenuts for breakfast, a change from the even more old-fashioned toast, eggs and cheese he had been eating for the past week.  After pouring Grapenuts into his bowl, Marash Boy reached into the refrigerator, grabbed a carton of milk, and poured the milk over his cereal.  He did the same for Marash Girl.  Marash Girl added sliced bananas and strawberries.  As they began to eat, they both paused, looked at each other, and asked, "Has Post changed the recipe?"  The bowl of Grapenuts had very quickly turned from crunchy nutty to squishy soft.  "Now why would that be?" they asked each other, and Marash Boy, scientist that he is, decided that it could be the milk, for after checking the carton, he noticed that the milk they had used had only 1% fat content.  "Let's try it with 'whole' milk tomorrow, like we used to, and see what happens," and that very day, Marash Boy went to the market and bought 'whole' milk.

Next morning, after pouring the Grapenuts into his bowl, Marash Boy reached into the refrigerator, grabbed the carton of 'whole milk', and poured the milk over his cereal.  He did the same for Marash Girl.  Marash Girl added sliced bananas and strawberries.  As they began to eat, they both paused, looked at each other, and asked, "How can that be?" because these Grapenuts were not soggy; rather, the Grapenuts were crunchy, just as Marash Boy and Marash Girl remembered them from years earlier.  Marash Boy surmised, "It must have to do with the higher fat content in the 'whole milk'."  When their scientist daughter came to visit that afternoon, she learned of her parents' experiment.  "Oh, you know," she said, "that almost all compounds are either 'hydrophilic' ('water-loving') or 'hydrophobic' ('water-fearing'); because fat is hydrophobic and carbohydrates (in this case, the Grapenuts) are hydrophillic, the milk with the higher fat content could not penetrate the surface of the Grapenuts as quickly as the milk with only 1% fat. . . That's just a guess."  A pretty good one, I'd say.

Who knew?