My Love Affair With Cereal

                                                            My Love Affair With Cereal

I can remember the taste, the crunch in my mouth and the sweetened milk left over:  Cocoa Puffs, Count Chocula, Froot Loops, Lucky Charms, Cocoa Pebbles, Cap’n Crunch (too much in a spoonful would rip the top of my mouth!), Frosted Flakes, Trix.  During the week, I was not allowed to eat these delightful treats.  But come Saturday morning . . . Whoo-Hoo!!!  And although I was allowed to eat these breakfast treats on the weekend only, with the amount of table sugar I added to my Rice Krispies and the amount of syrup I poured onto my Eggo Waffles during the week, I may as well have been amped up on Froot Loops as I headed to school!

I have a deep-rooted love affair with sugar cereals.  The texture, taste and sugar high left me a junkie.  In college, unaware of the harm I was doing to my body, I would often eat 1 or 2 large bowls of one of the above-mentioned delights as dessert after dinner.  YUM!   After eating I would go back to the dorm, turn on Michael Jackson, Jock Jams, or a “Baby’s Got Back” single, and proceed with a full dance routine (much to the delight and amusement of the other girls in my dorm) until I ran out of steam.  After the show . . . I would typically crash and fall into a deep slumber.  And then I would wake up to my roommate (thank goodness she cared) reminding me that I could not graduate without passing Shakespeare! 

I laugh at the memories and then get sad when I see these cereals in grocery stores.  It’s personal.  I know there are other kids out there who, like me, just can’t handle that kind of food.  And just because the packages now proclaim that my erstwhile weekend treats (and dessert in college!) are now fortified with vitamins and prepared with “whole grains” does not mean that they have become any better for us. 

I can’t believe I am confessing this.  One day I was in COSCO and the woman in front of me had a basket full of beautiful fruits and vegetables along with a Kellogg’s Cereal Apple Jack and Froot Loop variety pack.  She had two teenage girls and two toddlers with her.  I put my hand on her vegetables, looked at her, smiled and said: “These look good.”  She just smiled back and at this point I realized she had know idea what I just said.   That’s fine and thank goodness what I really wanted to say didn’t come out of my mouth.  And then it did.  One of her teenage daughters came around to where I was standing.  I looked at her square in the eye, put my hand on the Kellogg’s Apple Jack and Fruit Loop variety pack and with the other hand pointed to her younger siblings and said: “Your mother can’t give this to them.  They are not healthy.”  I don’t even remember what happened after that.  I got really hot and wasn’t sure how to feel about my intrusion into a complete stranger’s dietary choices for her family.  As I reflect, it was really none of my business.  

But my passion runs deep with breakfast cereal.  That is why I now make my own.  I hope you and your family enjoy it as much as our family does! 

Homemade Cereal – Gluten Free

6 Cups of Gluten Free Rolled Oats

1 Cup of Hemp Seeds

½ Cup of Flax Meal

3 Cups of Almond Flour

1 ½ Cups of Pecans Pureed

A Smidge More Than 1/3 of a Cup of Maple Syrup

Mix well in a very large bowl and transfer onto 2 tinfoil lined baking pans.  Place in the oven at 350 and bake for about 25 min (give or take a few minutes). Make sure you stir every 7 minutes and switch the cooking racks once or twice.

After it cools, store in the refrigerator.

Love deeply and eat mindfully,

Kim Gilroy - kimgilroyinsideout