New Breakfast Habits

I am not one to change my morning breakfast habits. Which is why, for 35 years (or whenever it is I got off the Gerber's), I have been eating Wheaties or Cheerios with milk and banana slices every morning. Sound boring? Tedious? I beg to differ; if it tastes good, why change?

[Important note: There are two exceptions to the above paragraph. 1) In moments of weakness, my mother did allow us to get sweetened cereals -- usually Alpha-bits (because it was educational) or, on extremely rare occasions, Fruity Pebbles, which we would go through in one sitting. And 2) when I was 8 years-old, I did eat Rice Krispies for 5 months because Kellogg's ran a promotion whereby kids could earn points by saving box tops and sending them in for cash. I earned 5 whole dollars though this deal... and haven't really eaten many Rice Krispies since.]

As I have learned more about food, where it comes from, and how it is made, however, I have slowly been making changes. For example, not really wanting to eat beef from feedlots where they feed grass-eating cows a diet of corn and antibiotics, I have been getting most of my beef from local farms that graze their cows in fields. I have been buying bread from local bakeries, rather than in supermarkets. One baker -- Red Hen -- even makes a bread with wheat grown in Vermont! Who knew?

Changing up breakfast, however, is not something to take lightly. A creature of habit, I have grown into my morning routine. Besides, what could be healthier and more wholesome than Wheaties, the breakfast of champions, or Cheerios, the toasted whole grain oat cereal? After months of denial, I finally studied the nutrition information of my two breakfast staples. The number two ingredient in Cheerios is corn starch. And not just corn starch... modified corn starch. Meanwhile, farther down on the Wheaties ingredient list (behind sugar) is corn syrup. Without getting into a rant about the mass quantities of corn being produced in America (so much that only subsidies from the federal government make it profitable and so much that they're putting it in my cereal and calling it Wheaties and in my automobile at the gas pump!), if I wanted corn for breakfast, I'd buy Corn Flakes!

So I have introduced new breakfast options. First, I worked with oatmeal, sweetened with honey and cinammon and spruced up with fruit. Pretty good, but I don't like having to cook in the morning. So now I'm onto granola mixed by my local bakery. There are different nuts, seeds, and raisins in there. It's not Wheaties, but it's good. But I also know where everything in my garnola came from, and it is what it is.

There are no double-agent foods hiding in my granola only to be revealed later.