I have a confession.
Let me start by explaining that I advocate healthy eating. I like brown rice. My fridge and freezer are always full of veggies. I consider fruit a dessert (yeah, ok, I do drizzle chocolate over the berries, but it’s dark chocolate with health benefits, sheesh), and I bake whole wheat bread that is hotly sought after by family and friends.
I will accept corn syrup as a candy-making ingredient, but stick it on spaghetti sauce or meatloaf and I’ll have serious complaints. And most “fruit snacks” belong in the candy aisle with the gummy bears, thank you. If I can’t pronounce it I don’t want it in my food. The word “processed” belongs to the packaging, not in anything to be cooked, heated, or eaten cold.
All these things go triple for small children.
I don’t consider sugary anything suitable for breakfast … but … well … here’s the confession.
I miss the sugary cereal commercials!
There, I said it. I miss leprechauns and marshmallows, silly rabbits trying to trick kids, birds going cuckoo for chocolate cereal, tigers, Fred and Barney, ghosts, and counts. I know these were aimed at selling nutritionally deficient alleged breakfast foods to small, impressionable children. Still, the commercials made me smile.
And really, was it any harder for a parent to say no than to explain the current drug commercials that are all over the place now? You know the ones I’m talking about!