Quaker Scientists Formulate World's Oldest-Fashioned Oatmeal

CHICAGO—Calling it a banner day for breakfast science, a team of Quaker researchers announced Wednesday that they’ve unlocked the oatmeal genome, and can now successfully produce the world’s oldest-fashioned oatmeal. “For 15 years, recreating the earliest form of oatmeal has been the Quaker research facility’s sole mission,” lead scientist Dr. Anders Cook told reporters, adding that his 12-man team, in conjunction with the archaeology department at Johns Hopkins University, had to simulate the soil and climate conditions of the Middle Paleolithic Era to achieve the most primitive form of the breakfast food. “And we’ve done it. After collecting the DNA of some petrified oats discovered in what is now considered modern day South Africa, we spliced new genes and attached the 40,000-year-old cells to de-husked oat grains; then just harvested, added hot water, and stirred.” When asked how the crowning achievement in oatmeal science tasted, all researchers agreed that it “pretty much tastes like shit. I mean, it’s oatmeal.”