Think of Cereal as Cake; It’s Not a Health Food. Recipe for Roasted Cabbage and Bacon.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERALast week the Wall Street Journal published an article about new marketing strategies Big Cereal is going to employ due to cereal sales being down. ( They’re being replaced by sweetened cereal bars; total company profits are actually up.)   The article describes plans to encourage consumers to mentally associate cereal with any time of the day, so that they’ll eat it more often;  new ads will feature men eating cereal while watching TV or playing video games, and kids having cereal as a snack.

The article actually begins with a man relating that he eats Cinnamon Toast Crunch as a snack at night instead of cupcakes or cookies, “because it doesn’t feel quite as horrible.”

His bad, because it is.

Cinnamon Toast Crunch has 25 grams of refined carbs per 3/4 cup serving, add 12 grams of carb from skim milk and you’ve got a Carb Bomb.   Breyers Vanilla ice cream has 14 grams of refined carbs per serving, plus 7 grams of fat and 3 grams of protein, both of which will help slow the release of the sugar from the intestine to the blood stream.  Remember, high blood sugar and high insulin cause inflammation and destruction throughout the body; and excess blood sugar is ALWAYS turned into fats/triglycerides.  Always.   

Cereals, whether labeled as “healthy whole grain”, or “high protein”, are Carb Heavyweights.  They’re about as refined and processed as a carbohydrate can get, right up there with pasta, bread, and cake.   It’s annoying that several are marketed as Health Foods, when in reality, they send blood sugar, and the necessary accompanying Insulin, sky rocketing.

Want a diet for obesity and poor health?  Eat cereal, it’ll get you there.  Think you need those carbs before your workout, for energy? Think again!  Carbs from grains and sugars are so quickly digested, that the energy HIGH is quickly met with an energy LOW.  Besides that, our body always prioritizes burning blood sugar BEFORE fat, no matter what we’re doing, including exercise.  Don’t waste your gym efforts by loading up on oatmeal or Kashi before your workout; you’ll inhibit butt and belly fat burning!

Blood sugar that shoots up MUST fall down.  Moms, this applies to our kids also.  Cereal before school is a perfect way to have them sleeping in class a couple hours later.  ( Cereal bars, toaster pastries, and waffles will have the same effect.)

Later in the article, someone recommends throwing a handful of cheerios in morning smoothies for extra fiber.  OMGosh!  My head exploded, honestly!  The marketing deception never stops.

What about cereal promoted as “healthy for kids”, like Barbara’s Puffins.  How’s that rate?   It’s trumpeted as having just 5 grams of sugar…. that’s a lie.  For a 3/4 cup serving, it’s actually 23 grams of carb.  All Carbs Become Sugar In The Gut;  it’s called digestion;  our stomach breaks our food down to molecules, and glucose is the end molecule of flour and sugar.    

What can you, or your kids, eat instead of Cereal?  So many options for each meal!

1. Breakfast Smoothies.  Be creative:  a good protein powder, or whole milk/coconutmilk/almondmilk/keifer;  frozen fruit, frozen greens, green powders, cinnamon/ginger/nutmeg/mace,…… fast and easy.   Don’t Add Cereal!

2. Bulletproof Coffee; you can use ANY organic coffee, and ANY MCT oil/cream/butter for this. The recipe is here.    This one leaves ZERO excuses for being “too busy for breakfast”, it’s also great for your brain.

3. Leftovers.  Stop being picky.

4.  Eggs, sausage, bacon, and vegetables

eggs

 

 

 

 

 

5. Roasted Cabbage with Butter and Bacon

This Is Excellent!!  Sorry that the herbs are front and center in the picture, but you can see how I sliced the cabbage behind them.  I roasted the cabbage at 425, for 20 minutes.  Meanwhile, on the stove top, I chopped and cooked 5 slices of good bacon with half a stick of kerrygold butter, just for a few minutes, NOT til crispy, just half crispy.

When the 20 minute timer went off, I pulled the cabbage out and spooned the butter and bacon on top, then finished them off with 20 more minutes.  Even Shelby liked it!  I did it again the following night with Bok Choy, in a big pan on top of the stove, with a little cheese on top.herbs and cabbage bacon and butter

 

 

Moral of the Cereal Story:  It’s time to get over believing everything Conventional Wisdom tells us.  Cereal’s not healthy; products made with grains and sugar cause Inflammation and Insulin Resistance.  We only have to look at the results of decades of top down policy to see that the CW’s not working.  Take control of your health and your weight and your energy and your kids health, weight, and energy.  Eat Real Whole Foods.

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