A spoonful of Honey Nut Cheerios is shown in Pembroke, N.Y. Cheerios, the iconic cereal from General Mills, is 70 years old this year. AP Photo

In this June 16 photo, boxes of Cheerios are shown in a store in Akron, N.Y. AP Photo

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Here’s a little quiz for the breakfast table: What is the most popular cereal brand in American grocery stores?

Hint: It’s been General Mills’ top name since 1951.

Another hint: If you’re a parent, you’ve vacuumed it from the minivan and under the high-chair cushion by the cupful.

The answer, of course, is Cheerios.

The iconic cereal, known by its distinctive yellow box, is 70 years old this year and still a force on the breakfast cereal market. One out of every eight boxes of cereal to leave the shelf in America carries the Cheerios name.

“They’ve been around since the beginning of man, right?” said Kathy Scott in Cape Coral, Fla. For her, the cereal’s linked to memories of childhood Saturday morning cartoons.

“My mother was very old-fashioned, a stay-at-home mom,” Scott, 50, said, “She made breakfast every morning, but on Saturday morning we were allowed to have cereal. Throw some fruit in there, sit on the floor and watch cartoons.”

The tradition repeated itself with her own two children.

“Saturday morning cartoons and Cheerios,” she said.

To make Cheerios, balls of dough are heated and shot out of a “puffing gun” at hundreds of miles an hour, according to General Mills. The company’s waterfront plant in Buffalo has been firing them off since 1941, often cloaking the city with a distinctive toasty-with-a-sweet-finish aroma and inspiring T-shirts announcing “My city smells like Cheerios.” More than 10 shapes

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