Volume Packing of Breakfast Cereal
With Raisin Bran, I tend to fill the bowl with cereal, then add milk, and when I finish the cereal, there’s only a small amount of milk left. With Cheerios, on the other hand, after I finish all the cereal from a full bowl plus milk, there’s still rather a lot of milk left. I generally put in another half-bowl (maybe two-thirds) worth of cereal, and finish that, too.
Being a physicist (and, as noted earlier, a gigantic dork), it occurs to me that this can probably be explained by the different volume packing factors for the different shapes. Raisin Bran is mostly flat flakes, which Cheerios are little toroids. Those two shapes will fill space very differently.
There is another factor involved here. Cheerios tend to float on the milk, while raisin bran tends to sink. Thus a spoonful of cheerios gets more cereal and less milk, but raisin bran gets more milk and less cereal.
I am a fan of both cereals myself, so I am familiar with the problem.