Breakfast Cereal Angst

As I walked down the cereal aisle of Loblaws this morning (a price gouging grocery chain here in Canada), I took my sweet time and took it all in. You see, I am still off work still recovering from COVID and seeing that I am no longer infectious, (2 lines on the rapid antigen test is negative, right?), thought I would catch up on some overdue grocery shopping. Over the past week, my Uber Eats has been the mode of food delivery as we barely had enough energy to get changed out of our pajamas.

So seeing that it was a Monday morning and the store was almost completely deserted, I slowly sauntered down aisle 8 and regaled at the wide array of choices of highly processed, insulin spiking, nutrient deficient goodness. Wow, all the colourful boxes with catchy slogans and characters on them…it really was overwhelming as I contemplated my decision of which one to buy. And should I be conservative and get just the regular size or should I get the family size? Seeing that I was just going to hide it when I got home anyway so no one else in the family would eat it, it was a moot point.

As I roamed from one end of the aisle to the other, I used the same discerning eye one would use when examining and inspecting different grades of steak. Or poultry – should I get the lean boneless chicken breasts or get the cheaper filets?.. I would pick up one box….look at the ‘nutritional’ side panel….and see that one cereal actually claimed that it contained 2 g of protein per 1 cup serving. So in order to get my RDA of 160g of protien, I would only need to eat 80 cups of it. That seems a bit …..excessive. So I would put that box back on the shelf and reach for another one and upon further review, this cereal had a whopping 50g of carbs per cup. How many carbs do I need again? At this point, my head hurt from doing math so I just stopped looking at the labels.

And then there was another element that entered into this whole process of picking out The One. The cereal boxes started singing to me. No, I had not just ingested mushrooms in the parking lot before entering the store (but there might be something there), but all the catchy songs that promoted all the cereals from my youth that my mother refused to buy for us, started playing in my head. Sound bites and phrases like…’come to the honeycomb hideout’, or ‘can’t get enough of those sugar crsips’ or ‘today’s gonna be a golden graham day’ or ‘A is for apple, J is for Jacks’ or ‘trix are for kids’ (not this kid by the way, still bitter), and finally, ‘they’re greeeeeattttttt’. Ok you get the point and if you grew up in a certain era, you will know exactly what cereals I’m talking about.

The only cereal that didn’t sing to me today was Corn Flakes …because it never had a song. It was boring. It was bland. It had a rooster as a mascot. It only became a cereal when you added other things to it…like sugar, fruit, or chocolate milk….it was an imposter….the bastard child of the cereals which became a staple in our household. We had it everyday. And I mean every day. As I write this, I can still taste the blandness and chalkiness of the flakes and I am convinced this was the first gluten free cereal before we even knew what gluten was.

So what cereal did I settle on today after all this? Have to say it was a cathartic experience picking up that box to Cinnamon Toast Crunch Rolls cereal…the advertising on the box claims that ‘whole grain is the first ingredient’ (wait, what?) and that is has a ‘cinnamon roll taste’ as well. Plus, it has these goofy looking mini cinnamon roll emojis amidst the magnificent colour scheme. And any cereal that has ‘brilliant blue FCF’ listed as one of the ingredients, must be a healthy choice. This cereal is the antithesis of Corn Flakes. RIP Corn Flakes.

As I sit here wrapping up this post, I am thinking about my upcoming bowl of cereal this morning and I am excited. In fact, as if the bells of Pavlov’s dogs were ringing, my mouth is watering.

Let me leave you with one final thought…. you are always entitled to a treat of your choice when you go grocery shopping. What will your Cinnamon Toast Crunch Rolls treat be?

As always, thanks for reading this post…now it’s time for breakfast!

Al