A great way to start your day can be by enjoying a large bowl of your favorite cereal, whether it is Frosted Flakes, Lucky Charms, Cheerios, or even Shredded Wheat. Now, take a second and think about how a bowl of cereal can be categorized. Could it reasonably be defined as a form of soup?

We interviewed some Apex High School staff and students to see if they would classify cereal as a soup.

Mr. Dasarathy: “Soup has a vibe, and cereal is not part of that.”

Deena Rahim: “No, it’s not in the soup aisle.”

Sofia Montanez: “No, because soups have veggies, and cereal does not.”

Elizabeth Kan: “No, because it doesn’t sit right with me, mainly because it doesn’t have to be cooked.”

Ishita Sahu: “Yes, because cereal has liquid, is eaten with a spoon, and also because there are a lot of cold soups.”

Siddanth PB: “Yes, it is more soupy than solid.”

Merriam-Webster defines soup as “a liquid food, especially with a meat, fish, or vegetable stock as a base and often containing pieces of solid food.” Now, you may be thinking cereal doesn’t have a meat, fish, or vegetable base. This would be correct, but these three substances serve as a liquid base for soup, similarly to how the base of cereal is a liquid (milk). The definition also states that soup often contains pieces of solid food, which would be the many different types of cereal you choose to mix with your milk. So, while it is a bit of a stretch, using the dictionary definition of soup, you could classify cereal as a soup.

In the end, only 27% of students at Apex agreed that cereal should be considered soup. Many good arguments were made, claiming soup has to be hot or asserting that cereal is its own category entirely. While these points do make sense, I will forever believe that cereal and soup should be categorized in the same family due to their many similarities. In the grand scheme of things, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and maybe this is one of those debates we’ll never settle, like ‘is water wet’ or ‘is a hotdog a sandwich?’ Either way, the next time you sit down with a bowl of cereal, take a second to wonder… are you having soup for breakfast?