May 24th, 2019

You see before you the cereal department of our pantry.  Four boxes holding four different kinds of relatively not horrible for you cereal.  Which is quite a statement.  "Relatively Not Horrible For You". Wow.  I have tried the supposedly "good for you" cereals.  I do not like them. There is no point in buying them if nobody is going to eat them. So I have settled for relatively not horrible as an acceptable standard.

I am actually not a big fan of cereal. And I do not ever remember really being wowed by it. Let's start with the fact that most cereals are intended to be eaten with milk on it.  Milk and I do not get along very well.  As a kid of course, nobody knew that it was possible for anyone to have a problem with milk.  Hey!  It's milk!  What could be healthier and better for a person than Milk!  But I A) never liked the taste.  I would never in a zillion years say to myself, "Wow, I'm thirsty, I think I will have a glas of milk". No.  Yuck. No.  and B) I have always always always had tummy troubles after having any dairy product it's just now that I am an adult, I know why and usually just avoid the culprit.  So if I have cereal, odds are good that I am eating it dry.

Some  cereals are ok dry as long as I have some water to drink because man are they drydrydry.  Mini-wheats and Quaker Oat Squares in particular I have come to appreciate dry.  But when breakfast time rolls around, I rarely opt for cereal.  There are so many other options that I like better.  Like, oh say, cold left over pizza. I adore pizza for breakfast! Cold and leftover are key to my full appreciation.  Toast is fine. A bagel would be even better if I could get a decent bagel here (which I cannot).  Fruit works fine too.  On a weekend day eggs perhaps. An egg sandwich with sliced pickles on it!  YUMMMMM!  Yes that is one of my absolute favourite things in the world. Crazy perhaps but so good.  

I think the other reason I'm not too crazy about cereal is that I ate so doggone much of it as a kid.  It was an easy meal.  And it says right on the box that it's fortified with vitamins and therefore it must be healthy.  It became an "any meal" option.  In fact, on one of our many moves during my childhood, we ended up in the fine state of Missouri.  At the time there was a severe housing shortage.  But my Dad had to be there for work.  Since there was no other place for us to be, we lived in a hotel for awhile.  Yes 4 people and a couple of dogs in one room in a Ramada Inn. It was not lovely.  

Because it's hard to prepare meals in a hotel room and eating out for every meal was prohibitively expensive, my mom bought those giant variety packages of Kelloggs cereal.  It was easy to store, easy to prepare (open the box, eat) and, honestly, if you read the side of the boxes you would think you were giving your children a perfectly healthy meal.  Once we finally got into a real house months later, I think by then I had sworn off cereal entirely.

I vaguely remember sharing a box of Captain Crunch with some fellow college students around 3 am while we were all cramming for finals.  At that moment it was the best tasting thing I had ever had. But I have always maintained the the hungrier you are, the better food tastes and it was definitely applicable in that case.  But otherwise, it is usually a very long time between serving of cereal for me.

Until recently that is.  Cereal showed up on my shopping list because while there were several boxes in the house, there was not enough for a single bowl in any one box.  Tim doesn't mind mixing and matching different cereals but if you put all three boxes together there was maybe enough for one bowl. So there I was, standing in the cereal aisle, totally uninspired.  

The cereal aisle is enormous!  How is it possible that there are THAT many different types of what is essentially the same thing?  After eliminating anything that is multi-coloured, has marshmallows in it, or a cartoon character on the front and then eliminating anything that smacks too much of healthy food, it was a much smaller batch of choices.

My eyes fell on the Cheerios section out of habit.  When the boys were toddlers, I would often give them a paper cup of cheerios when they asked for a cookie.  My assumption was that it was marginally better for them than a cookie.  It certainly lasted longer.  It would take them hours to eat.  They would share their cheerios with the dog and with their brothers.  I would find crushed cheerios all over the house and by the end of the day find damp cheerios in their clothes, their ears and their hair.  But they loved it.  Cheerios, just plain ordinary cheerios, were a staple in our house back then.

There must be a half dozen differerent types of cheerios now. Perhaps more. I didn't count them.  But there was a brand new one that I never heard of before:

I debated for a few minutes and then said "what the heck" and threw it in the cart.  If I don't like it, maybe Tim will.  He is far more willing to eat unusual things than I am.  

I have to tell you. I love this stuff! It's probably terrible for me. I haven't bothered to read the side of the package because I do not want to find out because then maybe I'll have to stop eating it.  I think I had cereal twice for breakfast this week!  THAT NEVER HAPPENS!

After so many years of being Meh about cereal, I have found one that I like.  I honestly believed that if I never ate cereal again in my life,  I would be fine with that.  Never say never I guess.   Illustrating once again, that it's important to stay open-minded.  But not so open that your brains fall out.

Have a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend folks!  Be safe and have fun! 
Hugs all 'round