Many of us are familiar with the words “breakfast cereals” and get our morning nourishment from them,
but very few people understand the hidden meaning behind these words.
Our first association, with which we have been accustomed, is that this is a satisfying and nutritious way
to start the day, and in fact, breakfast cereals have a longstanding place in human awareness as a tasty,
healthy, and high quality source of nourishment. In addition, we must consider the fact that preparing and
serving the meal takes even less time than “fast food”, and this has an influence upon our belief that this is
the best possible form of breakfast. The “health” revolution and the modern food industry have also had
an influence upon breakfast cereals. Labels on food provide a detailed page of laboratory results in an
effort to convince us that this is actually a healthy product. It has everything: whole grains, nutritious
fibers, natural ingredients, and a long list of vitamins and minerals. Then if you add a cup of milk, you
have a bowl of health sent from Heaven.
Breakfast cereals are made from grains and eaten in the morning. But what are we really feeding
ourselves and our children?
‘Grains’ is a general term for cultured sprouts from the grain family. Grain can generally be defined as
produce that can be ground into flour and then made into bread. The grain group includes wheat, barley,
rye, rice, oats, millet, and corn. As a result, flakes from white flour are also considered grain, as are
cookies, croissants, and all types of pastries and cakes – all of which can be categorized as breakfast food.
Here we find hidden an unfounded premise: The accumulative change in the grain gives us a feeling that
this is healthy food, which nourishes and strengthens our bodies. The answer is No with a capital N!
There’s an additional fact that is important to note: The food colorings added to the “breakfast cereal”
mixture just makes things worse and underlines the fact that we’re talking about an obviously unhealthy
foodstuff. Many people consider breakfast cereal dietary, and here too the facts regrettably don’t back this
assertion. Anyone who works according to caloric value knows the real facts: 500 grams of raw corn
contain 800 calories, whereas 500 grams of corn flakes have 2,800 calories – an increase of 350%!
Popular breakfast cereals, such as corn flakes, are made of corn flour, but once it is processed, it becomes
pure corn starch. This is the most calorific and unhealthy part of the corn flour, while pure flour contains
nutritious vitamins and fibers.
The fact is that the aggressive process of producing breakfast cereal doesn’t leave many vitamins and
minerals behind. Therefore, in order to sell it as “health food”, they add a synthetic artificial appearance
containing vitamins and minerals which might not be properly absorbed into our bodies. For example, the
calcium placed in breakfast cereals is actually calcium carbonate, which is not absorbed and even has
negative health effects. The nutritional fibers contained in breakfast cereals are from wheat bran, creating
a process of binding minerals, such as calcium and magnesium, and extracting them from our bodies due
to the phytic acid within brans. Whole wheat is a good thing, but when its bran is extracted, we get a
product that can be very damaging to our health. Therefore, a word of advice to those who are stringent
about eating only whole grain cereals, such as those from whole rice, whole wheat, whole corn, and oats:
Please be aware of the fact that the added sugar is much higher than even in artificial sweeteners, which
are among the very worst.
We naturally eat breakfast in the morning – at the start of our day. The morning is comparable to the
spring season, which also possesses similar powers of renewal, blossoming, growth, and development,
both physical and spiritual. Therefore, there is much importance attached to the start of the day. Indeed,
“everything goes according to the beginning”, and it is most critical that we properly relate to this special
time of our daily cycle.
Summary: If we are in a rush in the morning with “no time” to prepare a proper breakfast with a
big salad or even fruit, then homemade granola (easy to make), quinoa, or rice cereal, with some
sheep or goats’ milk yogurt would be preferable. During the winter, hot oatmeal will serve as a
much healthier substitute to start the day.
