With Milk on the Side

 One day on a trip we stopped at a Cracker Barrel restaurant where I studied an old advertisement for cornflakes and found the proper way to eat them. The ad said they were "delicious with good top milk, poured into the side of the bowl, a little at a time." I guess that's why mine were always soggy. I dumped the milk over the top all at once.

I read once that cereal is the culprit responsible for America's obesity problem. The article recalled that a hundred or so years ago, people ate bacon and egg for breakfast. Then cereal was developed, and people stopped eating as many eggs, especially once it was known that they are high in cholesterol. Supposedly, cereal did not "stick to the ribs" all morning, and people ate even more for lunch. Well, they do fatten animals on grain, so maybe it makes sense.

Conversely, breakfast cereal was invented in an effort to give people healthier diets, as many people were troubled by intestinal problems back then. They often went to "sanitariums" to be cured. Dr. Harvey Kellogg was the superintendent of one of these sanitariums, strictly adhering to the guidelines of Sylvester Graham, who also invented Graham crackers. One day in 1894, as Dr. Kellogg and his brother, William Keith Kellogg, were experimenting with corn, they left the mixture out too long and it became stale. When they tried to roll it into thin sheets, it flaked up. Being thrifty, they decided to bake it anyway, and cornflakes were born.

Then, according to the article I read, a man with failing health visited the sanitarium. His name was C.W.  Post. He wasn't cured there, but he picked up the ideas on healthful eating, and went on to invent Grape Nuts, which made him rich. (It was sweetened with a type of sugar known as "grape" sugar, and it tasted like nuts.)

Diets come and go, and the pendulum now seems to be swinging to include fat in your diet(in moderation). Low-fat and fat-free diets are obviously not the answer to our weight issues. God created all foods to sustain us, and variety and moderation are no doubt the keys to good health. The focus of our society is almost exclusively on the temporal to the neglect of the eternal. Fashions, cosmetics, and exercise programs are all distractions that take our mind off what is really important. The body doesn't last, but the spirit lives on. That is where our emphasis should be. But a little bowl of cereal doesn't hurt, either.