Grape-Nuts was initially marketed as a natural cereal that could enhance health and vitality, and as a "food for brain and nerve centres.

[4] During the 1940s, comic books from various companies featured one-page comic-strip ads starring Volto from Mars, a finned red helmet-clad alien superhero visiting Earth, who, like all Martians, recharged his magnetic powers (his left hand repels, his right attracts) by eating "cereal grains", with him quickly developing a particular fondness for Grape-Nuts Flakes which he proclaimed "the best I ever tasted!

was parodied on television variety show sketches, in the film The Kentucky Fried Movie, and in many episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

A subsequent ad campaign generated another catchphrase, as Euell Gibbons became the spokesperson for the brand, promoting Grape-Nuts as the "Back to Nature Cereal.” The line "Ever eat a pine tree?

[9] During World War II, Grape-Nuts were included in the Allied Forces jungle rations on missions to Panama and various other tropical locations.

[9] In 1953, Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay brought Grape-Nuts along on their trek to the peak of Mount Everest when they became the first to reach the mountain's summit.

[11] Grape-Nuts ice cream is a popular regional dish in the Canadian Maritimes, the Shenandoah Valley, Panama, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and New England.

It proved popular at the restaurant and the Scotsburn Dairy company began mass-producing the ice cream variety, and it sold across the region.