Lies My Breakfast Cereal Told Me

You know you're too grown-up when you start choosing a breakfast cereal based on fiber content and not cartoon character. 

Until recently - and by "recently" I mean a few months ago - I saw nothing wrong with being a 36-year old woman and mother of two who ate Lucky Charms for breakfast. I mean, come on, what's not to love? If I believe General Mills' ad campaign, the non-marshmallow part of the cereal is made with "whole grains" or some other healthy-sounding crap like that. Healthy AND magically delicious!

But alas. My husband, who is all, "We need to be healthier so we can live a long time and continue to annoy each other well into our 100s," is into healthy eating, probably just to piss me off.

If this had, like, 15 pounds of sugar on it, I'd totally be into it.

Exercise I have no problem with, when I have the time. I'll walk for miles, I'll do Pilates, I do do yoga every morning. I've even started meditating, so that in those moments when I'm about to lose my shit because all three of my housemates are ganging up on me in what is clearly a well-planned assault on my emotional well-being, I can find my Happy Place, take a deep breath, cultivate inner peace, and not go to prison for stabbing my family. (My matra is, "Pretty fish like me don't do well in prison." *breathe in* "Pretty fish like me don't do well in prison." *breathe out*)

So, you know, exercise is fine with me. 

It's the eating right part of "being healthy" that gets me. 

I grew up in the 80s, when putting cut-up hot dogs in my Kraft Macaroni & Cheese was considered a well-balanced meal because it had 3 of the 4 food groups in it: protein, dairy, and powdered cheese product. Apparently that is not an acceptable lunch for a grown woman.

Other things I grew up eating which I am now supposed to give up so that I don't have a heart attack at age 40 or develop Type II diabetes or have a stroke or some other stupid crap that so-called "doctors" and "scientists" warn us about:

• Fried chicken
• Bacon cheeseburgers
• Pizza
• Fettucini Alfredo
• Chocolate ice cream mixed with Double-Stuf Oreos
• Nutella
• Potato chips
• French fries
• Pretzels
• Anything delicious

The thing is, if it were up to me those things are ALL I would eat. After pushing 100-pounds of stroller and children uphill in 95-degree heat and humidity for at least a mile, and then doing all my diastasis recti physical therapy so I don't look 6-months pregnant anymore, I think I deserve some fried chicken, French fries, and chocolate ice cream covered in Nutella. I mean, right?

<3 <3 <3

But, oh no, in order not to weigh 900 pounds I have to "snack" on "light cheese" and "fruit," which is not filling at all. I don't like diets, but I don't like the idea of taking up more than one subway seat at a time, either.

And my husband pulls this card on me, which is so unfair but he's a lawyer and uses tricks like this all the time: "I quit smoking to be healthier for you, so you owe it to me and to our children to eat healthy and not die young." He's such a jerk.

So, crappy grown-up cereal it is for breakfast, because apparently Eggs Benedict is not "healthy" in the strictest sense of the term. But here's the thing. The box claims that because the cereal is full of fiber and protein it will help me "Stay Fuller Longer!" Exact words. But an hour later and I'm ready to eat my own arm off from hunger. 

WHY WOULD BREAKFAST CEREAL LIE TO ME???

You know what doesn't lie to me? Bagels. Eggs Benedict. When I eat those for breakfast I'm actually full for the next 3-4 hours, not pretend, lying, hippie cereal quote-unquote "full."

When I eat Lucky Charms, I know exactly what I'm getting: a bowl full of delicious, followed by a sugar high, followed by the hangover-like remorse of a sugar crash. At least Lucky doesn't pretend otherwise, HEALTHY GROWN-UP CEREAL THAT DOESN'T EVEN TASTE GOOD. Asshole.

***

I won't lie to you: I have a Bota Box picnic essay up over at Moms Who Need Wine. Click here to check it out! 

Vitamin RC (Reality-Check)

This morning my husband and I discussed whether it's time to start giving our son, the Juban Princeling, a regular multi-vitamin. And just in time, too, as the Princeling went ahead and had a fit when I wouldn't give him one of my enormous, horse-sized vitamins that I can barely choke down every morning.

So I did what I usually do when I have a question about raising my child in a healthy way that will help him be the best little Princeling he can be: I consulted the internet.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics:

The American Academy of Pediatrics believes that healthy children receiving a normal, well-balanced diet do not need vitamin supplementation over and above the recommended dietary allowances, which includes 400 IU (International Units) of vitamin D a day. Megadoses of vitamins—for example, large amounts of vitamins A, C, or D—can produce toxic symptoms, ranging from nausea to rashes to headaches and sometimes to even more severe adverse effects. Talk with your pediatrician before giving vitamin supplements to your child.

I think it's adorably optimistic of the AAP to assume that we all live in a TV commercial where the children sit quietly and happily at the kitchen table to consume a "normal, well-balanced" breakfast every single day. Probably one cooked by their parents and consisting of things like egg-white omlettes with spinach and tomatoes, organic turkey sausage, and fresh-squeezed orange juice. And the children are all fresh-faced and wholesome, and they do their homework without being nagged, and the siblings never fight, and no one ever has a tantrum, and at night the whole family holds hands and sings "Kumbaya."

Barf.

Yeah, right.
(Photo from hubpages.com)

Here in the Lopez household we are full of good intentions and lazy follow-through. Husband and I would love it if the Princeling one day had a breakfast that could conceivably qualify as "food," but every morning we're slapped in the face by real life. Yesterday he had a cookie for breakfast. Today's breakfast consisted of:

1 1/2 saltines,
Three bites of an apple
Four Skittles

And we were happy, because he ate those saltines and had those bites of apple!

To be fair, when Husband and I took the personality quiz in "Stress-Free Potty Training," the Princeling scored astronomically high in the "Strong-Willed" category. (Oh, yay.) But I imagine most households are like ours: good intentions, harsh reality.

Part of this complete breakfast!
(Photo from Wikipedia.)

Nice try, AAP, but have any of you ever MET a child? Do any of you truly believe in your heart of hearts that the overwhelming majority of American children are receving healthy, balanced nutrion via their meals and snacks?

Since the Princeling likes fruit so much we have not worried much until now. Fruit is healthy, right? The USDA says we should make "half our plates" full of fruit. The USDA wouldn't lie to us. Would they?

Then I thought back to the past few weeks and noticed about 90% of what the Princeling regularly consumes falls into one of these three categories:

Fruit
Hot dogs/chicken nuggets
Skittles

Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure Skittles don't pack a lot of vitamin B and hot dogs aren't high in fiber.

The thing is, the Princeling does like vegetables. But he only eats them under certain circumstances, like when they are heated up in a bowl and he's watching his train movie, and Saturn is in retrograde, and it's a Leap Year, and the Speaker of the House has a last name ending in the letter Q.

So, thank you for the vote of confidence, American Academy of Pediatrics, but our kid is now a Flintstones Kid. It's the only way I can sleep at night.