If you spend enough time online, you develop somewhat of a ‘personal brand’. I’d like to think mine is tied to baseball, wearing hats and prairie dresses, enjoying a cold coffee or beer on a summer day, and hating breakfast cereals.
‘Hate’ is probably too strong a word. I never want to yuck someone else’s yum, especially when it’s essentially harmless. But I do remain rather steadfast (strident?) and insistent that the bulk of cereals - particularly those from the US - are a snack food, and not a meal.
I’ve long had a contentious relationship with cereal, and really with breakfast itself. My entire life I have been plagued by what I politely call my ‘bad stomach’, and what various healthcare professionals have called ‘IBS’ or ‘inflammatory bowel disease’ or ‘colitis’. Occasionally having attacks bad enough to land me in the hospital, but for years somewhat managed by a very restrictive diet and daily exercise.
Still, I live in a constant state of gut upset. Bloated, a background noise of discomfort, air making its way through the broken-down jalopy of my digestive tract sometimes announcing itself so loudly; with no respect for time and place, forcing me to clutch my arms around my midsection attempting to muffle the sound while mumbling ‘I’m not hungry, my stomach just does that sometimes’.
Breakfast, while being sold to us as the most important meal of the day was always fraught for me. One wrong move and that meal would ruin the rest of my day.
Rushing to eat something before leaving for work caused inordinate stress. Cereal wasn’t too bad, but I’d be hungry again by the time I got to the office. I experimented with oatmeal, but occasionally and for no real reason the texture would make me gag and I couldn’t eat it again for months. I moved to overnight oats with chia seeds instead, but it tasted like wet cement and I could imagine it hardening inside me, creating freshly paved highways throughout my intestine.
When covid hit and we all got sent home, I stopped having anything in the morning other than coffee, and realized that my body did so much better when not forced to eat upon waking. I haven’t had breakfast since.
None of this however fully explains my particular animus towards cereal. Maybe it’s because as a kid we were only allowed the ‘healthy’ kind? And that sometimes I needed to supplement with Fiber One cereal when my stomach was acting up, gagging down what tasted like sawdust and twigs with the consistency of nuts and bolts, determined to crack my teeth.
And when I was young, eons ago - cereal was sold to us as ‘part’ of a complete breakfast. In ads it would be accompanied by glasses of orange juice and milk, and a plate of eggs, toast and sausage - more food than needed by even the most active lumberjack. The tacit acknowledgement that on its own cereal didn’t offer much.
These commercials used to inordinately annoy me, especially the ones for Frosted Flakes with Tony the Tiger, who I couldn’t stand. Something about him set my teeth on edge, which admittedly says a lot more about me than him. His self-satisfaction irritated me so much that I never wanted to try the cereal on principle.
Our ‘treat’ cereals were the occasional box Mini Wheats or very rarely Golden Grahams, my mom well aware that most cereals were just sugar bombs with minimal to no nutritional value. We were allowed Raisin Bran, which I loved. The ‘bran’ in the title tricking us into thinking it was healthy, but I would spoon through the box to try and achieve a ratio of two raisins to every one bran flake, ensuring my morning was fueled by pure fructose.
I loved when at camp or school assemblies we would get those single serving boxes of cereal, little engineering marvels that you poured the milk into directly, no bowl required. I would scoff at Special K or Rice Krispies and go straight to the Fruit Loops or whatever cereal had those dried-up dyed hard bits of sugar masquerading as marshmallows. I knew I was setting myself up for a vicious stomachache later, but I didn’t care.
Whenever I visit the US, I like to go to a grocery store and browse the cereal aisle. Sometimes I’m asked to bring back things we can’t get here, Cookie Crisp, Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch, Apple Jacks, products that if they came in a bag instead of a box would most certainly be called snacks.
But why do I care? If you get the continental breakfast at a not-so-great hotel or a boring work conference, it comes with a variety of danishes, donuts, eclairs and croissants. These are pastries, not out of a place at a high tea or served for dessert, but we accept them as breakfast because we know they are bribes - a way to make the not-so-great hotel seem not-so-bad, the boring work conference a little less boring.
I even get the yen every once in a while for Barbara’s Puffins cereal, particularly the cinnamon or peanut butter flavour. But I eat it as a snack, and once or twice is enough. The box would long go stale before I finished it, and with the cost of food these days, it’s definitely no longer worth it.
Still, now as a very full grown adult - I appreciate that even if I’m mostly doing a ‘bit’ regarding cereal, it is a bit smug and perhaps a lot annoying. I don’t actually care what anyone eats, nor should I. It’s none of my business.
Enjoy your cereal, however you eat it. Snack, breakfast - it’s all good. You do you. And if you ever find a single serving box of Raisin Brain, send it my way.
Our wedding photographer is a friend of Allison's. He's from Toronto. He's not usually a wedding photographer but did ours as a friendly favor. He tends to do more music photography and his own creative art stuff.
Anyway: our wedding was across the street from a grocery store and, after all of the usual photos, he asked if we'd go with him to the store as he has this weird thing about grocery stores in the US, how big they are, how gleaming they are, and how they have SO Much of everything. He is particularly taken with cereal aisles, as they are apparently very different here than up there. That led to one of my favorite of our wedding photos: Allison and I each holding a box of cereal -- hers is gluten-free, naturally -- in the cereal aisle. It's here FWIW:
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNnbNLtRI_XtgzFfvjY6fAI-TGC_0W2s8CkkBLvg5WMQXzLlFvqMFBWbrPBcRDiHg/photo/AF1QipPaHZEwqf4YYhDccuIENSeIk9SsnosfA-_-H_k6?key=c0Z6bDJLN0N1QXBLQzJJbm5ZNmNSQ3gwWkpiMXhR
Thoroughly enjoyed this post, Ruth.
I'm sorry you have stomach issues, but it seems you cope well.
Growing up I was a huge Cap'n Crunch fan, but as an "adult" I can barely stomach any of those cereals. While I always like Tony the Tiger (he's GREAT - but I can understand your irritation with him), Frosted Flakes just never hit the spot. Truthfully, I can't tell you the last time I had any cereal for breakfast.
These days I tend to have a bagel with an egg and cheese (home-made, not Dunkin' Donuts) or a bagel with peanut butter slopped on it. Perhaps a couple hard-boiled eggs with hot sauce, something quick and that can be eaten on the go. Haven't had a cup of coffee since September (Labour Day Weekend), 2001. Sundays, its three eggs, bacon and hash browns with whole wheat toast, which is a holdover from my youth; grandpa always made a huge breakfast on Sundays.
Thanks for your "Musings", they give me a chance to relate and reminisce! If I see any of those magical boxes, I'll send them your way.