What’s for breakfast?
When my kids were young, there were always a half dozen or so assorted
boxes of breakfast cereal lined up on top of the refrigerator (the only place
they would fit). Back then, cereal was
actually affordable at about $1.50 for a great big box. The kids loved it and it was easy to
fix. Pour on the milk – and what a good
mom I am for feeding my children a healthy breakfast. Yes, I admit it. That’s what I thought I was doing. After all, I chose the “good” cereal –
usually without the sugar coating… mostly things like Cheerios, and Shredded
Wheat, and Rice Krispies, and – okay – maybe one box of Cocoa Puffs or Trix (my
favorites). But, no worries! The cereal is “vitamin fortified!” And everyone knows a little sugar won’t hurt
you.
When my third child came along, I was traumatically
introduced to the dark side of food allergies—particularly food additive
allergies, an event that marked the beginning of my label-reading
obsession. But that’s a long story I
won’t go into right now. Suffice it to
say, I began to take a serious look at what is in our food. Did it stop me altogether buying processed
food? Not for a good long while… and,
I’m sorry to say, not soon enough.
Perhaps the overall healthiness of my children would be considerably
better today had I paid better attention to what I was feeding them then. But, we won’t wallow in regrets.
Today’s topic is cereal, motivated by my youngest child (now
an adult) who has been known to eat cereal for breakfast AND for supper on many
if not most days. And not your standard
three-quarter or one cup serving, either.
We’re talking a serious main course serving of two to three cups of
cereal along with its obligatory ratio of milk in a bowl normally used to mix
up potato salad (okay, maybe not quite…but you get the point).
So the question is, what exactly is she getting in that
cereal meal?
First, I give you my favorite childhood cereal, Trix...
In all fairness, this is obviously not the cereal anyone would pick out for it's "healthy" qualities, so here's Cheerios, a more modest offering...
Ready-to-eat cereal, according to an article by Mike Hughlett that came out in today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune, is a $6 billion-plus
business in the U.S. Cheerios, for example, is a product that crosses
every demographic, from toddlers (often their first solid “snack” food) to
people my age looking for a fiber solution—including the occasional 30-year old
looking for a convenient meal.
Most cereal companies market their products these days
with some kind of “health food” angle (notice the "whole grain" in the Trix), whether it’s low fat or high fiber, low
sugar or more whole grain, gluten free or heart healthy. But are they really any of those things? Without the synthetic vitamin supplements
pumped into the mix, what you’re getting is nothing more than a paste made from
highly processed grain, sugar, and water (and very often artificial flavors and colors) that has
been extruded under high heat and formed into some pleasing shape (usually
resembling dry dog food), toasted and packaged into a nice box decorated with
clever marketing slogans.
Extruded? What the
heck is that? From an eye-opening article
on the Weston Price website, Dirty Secrets of the Food Processing Industry,
Sally Fallon has this to say: “In his
book Fighting the Food Giants,
biochemist Paul Stitt describes the extrusion process, which treats the grains
with very high heat and pressure, and notes that the processing destroys much
of their nutrients. It denatures the fatty acids; it even destroys the
synthetic vitamins that are added at the end of the process. The amino acid
lysine, a crucial nutrient, is especially damaged by the extrusion process.” …So much for the added vitamins. “When we put cereals through an extruder, it
alters the structure of the proteins.” (emphases added)
Some studies have concluded that this extrusion process
actually turns the proteins into toxins.
As a matter of fact, in a 1960 study by the University of Michigan (referenced in the above article), rats
fed corn flakes died before the rats that ate the corn flake box—from malnutrition.
“Furthermore, before death, the cornflakes-eating rats
developed aberrant behavior, threw fits, bit each other and finally went into
convulsions. Autopsy revealed dysfunction of the pancreas, liver and kidneys
and degeneration of the nerves of the spine, all signs of insulin shock.
The startling conclusion of this study was that there was more nourishment in
the box than in the cornflakes. This experiment was designed as a joke, but the
results were far from funny.”
So, BRAVO to the marketing masters who have convinced us
all that ready-to-eat breakfast cereals will make us strong and stave off
disease. And what a choice we have. More likely, at $5 a box,
eating this stuff will keep the cereal manufacturers rolling in our dough… not
to mention the pharmaceutical companies and our family physicians.
Here's an idea... why not abandon the cereal aisle altogether, and cook up
a couple farm fresh eggs for breakfast. Throw in an orange for good measure and a link or two of pastured pork
sausage; and instead of some dubious frankenfood, you'll be getting REAL food loaded with natural vitamins, minerals, enzymes, healthy fat and protein. (I’m feeling healthier just
thinking about it!)
Boo :( What about granola???
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