Letters to the Editor
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Favorite breakfast
We should count ourselves lucky we don't eat what the English eat for breakfast - cold toast and kippers - which is fish!
I am lactose intolerant, so cereal was history long ago for me. Growing up I mostly avoided eating breakfast or had a small portion of dinner leftovers for breakfast - preferrably pasta. I realize I can have lactaid now, but after 30 years off of cereal, I lost the taste for it.
My 8 year old loves cans - chef-boy-r-dee, Campbell's noodle soup and that kind of thing. He is allowed 1 a day, which he invariably has for breakfast. Alternate choice is left over pasta from dinner. He also gets one candy a day (1-small piece), that is consumed right after breakfast.
On the other side, I know a number of adults who if they are alone and too tired to make dinner, eat a bowl of cereal. It is also sometimes a late night comfort food (usually stopping when they go on a diet and calculate the extra calories their treat has).
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Studies on breakfast cereal
The author mentions the cereal studies that have been published (paid for by food corporations), but not some the corporate food science that was buried. Paul Stitt, former corporate food biochemist, wrote in his book 'Fighting the Food Giants' about a study where rats fed only breakfast cereal & water died sooner than rats fed only the cardboard cereal box & water. Originally designed as as inside joke for food scientists, the study says a lot about the toxicity of extruded grains.
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Cereal is wonderful
cereal is the greatest food ever invented. you can eat it any time any place. its wonderful dry. its wonderful with milk. my love will never end, no matter how cranky some people are. "Methinks you doth protest too much"
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The bad girl of American food writing?
The Aztecs, for whom forehead-powered cargo transport was a technological triumph, went the handcrafted route with their corn tortillas.
I guess that by "bad," Ms. Marx de Salcedo just means plain stupid. That dig at Aztec culture is racist and ignorant. There were no large draft animals in the Americas before the European arrival and yet, the Aztecs still managed to build beautiful temples and other stone structures. As for the reliance of corn (in tortillas) have you never heard from of the Mesoamerican Trilogy? As a person who is supposedly interested in food from a culture perspective, she should know better.
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Quite Honestly
I'd rather people enjoy their cereal than kill pigs for breakfast. The decline of bacon for breakfast every day is, no doubt, a relief for our porcine friends.
As for the health issues, I think the cereals are lower in fat and cholesterol than bacon and eggs.
Breakfast for me is a cup of coffee, so I don't have a horse in this race or on my plate.
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The article itself is puffed and extruded
With loads of extra sugar and starch. Jeez, have the editors gone on vacation? 2-3 paragraphs of information, not entirely novel, and the rest is just time-wasting filler that only amuses the author.
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YaY! I have always hated cereal!
Yay for EGGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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There are lots of flaws with this argument.
First of all we have to distinguish between different kinds of breakfast cereals. Surely Grape Nuts and Fiber One are better for you than Lucky Charms and Cocoa Puffs. Even if they are all processed grains or made from white ("enriched") flour, there are other, not insubstantial, differences there. Now, I don't actually have the Nutrition Facts in front of me; maybe the unsweetened Shredded Wheat is just as bad for you as Fruity Pebbles, but if so you should devote at least a little space to making that case, because right now it sounds like you're judging the better cereals by the faults of their peers.
About the processed grains, yes, they are nutritionally devoid, but as you point out, many times they are refortified. Does that make them as good for you as the original whole grains? Maybe not, but it sure doesn't make them ridiculously bad for you. I have a hard time believing cholesterol-laden eggs or greasy fried bacon or sausage is better for you than a reasonable cereal (i.e. not Sooper Xtra-Sugar Froot Twistz) with lowfat milk. In fact, I would say it's overconsumption of high-fat, high-cholestrol, high-calorie meat, eggs, cheese, etc., that has led to the obesity epidemic (as well as overconsumption of soda & candy, etc.), not overconsumption of Raisin Bran and Special K.
Also, by the way, you lose credibility complaining about the taste of cereal. Maybe you really do think it tastes like cardboard, but I'm sure it wouldn't be the number 3 selling item if the rest of the country felt the same way. (Besides, isn't it hard to argue that cereal contains too much salt & sugar at the same time you're arguing it tastes like cardboard? Personally, I would say that cereals like Count Chocula are too sweet, not too bland.) So you aren't going to convince anybody that way, and it makes you sound like a bit of a fanatic.
The other reason that breakfast cereal is so popular, of course, is the miniscule amount of time it takes to prepare. Sure, it'd be great if we could all spend 20 minutes preparing some delicious and nutritious first meal, but we can't and we aren't going to be able to any time soon. Given that reality, cold cereal seems like a pretty healthful choice for something that fast. I can't think of much of anything that would be significantly better. (Again, here I'm thinking of the healthier cereals, not one that is, say, literally miniature chocolate chip cookies in a bowl.)
Your suggestion about grabbing a handful of nuts, seeds, and dried fruit is a good one, but put that in a bowl and isn't that basically granola (that is, breakfast cereal)? In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if that's where breakfast cereal came from to begin with. (Fruit smoothies are another quick, healthy morning choice, or heck, even whole fruit. No preparation (except perhaps peeling) necessary.)
Oh, and there's got to be about forty reasons to eat raisin bran instead of a Krispy Kreme in the morning, regardless of how much sugar is in each (saturated fat, fiber, cholesterol, vitamins and minerals, etc.) so that comparison is disingenous.