The Cereal Nation.

The national accepted norm is to have a pile of sugar with enough protein to cause a solid spike in insulin.

Aka cold cereal out of a box with some milk. And no, there isn't a good cereal. Granola and Grape nuts get close but still no cigar.

The reasons it is bad to habitually consume these is the same reason it is good to take advantage of it if you are racing that day (bike racing, specifically for a race starting before noon).

Last night I made the same statement in two places. Both actually generated discussion and questions and "eh'splain yourself Lucy" kind of stuff.

Heck it even got me a "why don't you have a food blog? or do you? if not you should." comment.

Maybe I should. Maybe I will. Someday I suppose. Damn it, back to the MMB

So how did it start?

Want to be healthier?

No more cold cereal. Period.

Not even granola or grape-nuts are good for you. esp the milk.

make a difference in your life and cut that crap out.

but will you? probably not. It is marketing man - the marketing departments have you thinking it is good for you. it isn't. not for breakfast anyway. as an ice cream topper for desert? yeah, it works there. Oh wait...

On posting of that inflammatory suggestion i managed a follow up off the bat (okay so I posted it one place, went to second and wrote this while others jumped on the first):

Whole grains are fine. If you take the time to cook them and make the flavors your own (even if that means maple syrup and brown sugar) it is still much better for you than anything else out there pre-packaged. No quick oats don't count (unless they are bulk and just oats).

Cereal aisles are one of the highest subsidized shelf spaces in the grocery store. High dollar goes to eye catching placement. And marketing? Have you watched TV?

Turns out honey nut o's are good for you. They cure everything.

And hey, can't have any fat so load up with some skim milk and make sure you really crank that insulin and provide zero fuel (fat) that can go into the blood stream right away.

Doesn't work.

Recent good review "article/blog post": http://pedalingzen.blogspot.com/2011/08/fat-metabolism-for-better-health.html

anything but cold breakfast cereal in the morning, well almost anything - honestly a snicker's bar probably is better for you. or a peanut butter cookie.

Now of course it tumbled here and there with people like Parke and Marcus and Brent with a need to interject some humor. Funny, maybe. Annoying? Mostly.

I'm not sure I have had enough coffee yet, and it is too early to try and lubricate the neurons with booze, so the synthesis of the comments into one nice solid cohesive flow probably is beyond my capabilities at the moment. So I'm just going to break[fast] it down into Question/Comment and response.

DG - OK Beanpole, I'll try dropping the cereal. What would you recommend in its place? Yogurt? I hate oatmeal.
My reply:
how about an egg? quick one egg sandwich, super thin slice of uncured ham and an ounce of cheese (gets you your calcium w/ deactivated milk hormones) on a whole grain english muffin?

Steel cut oats made with water (cook em the night before and it is almost a granola consistency). Add a splash of cream in the morning and some raisins. Muselix works (but usually comes in a box, but also is not sweet enough for 99% of Americans used to boxed cereal).

Yogurt is great if you can avoid the dannon style (aka stonyfield) super sweet stuff (plain, only plain and avoid the greek stuff).

Make some pancakes from scratch with the kids using good flour as a base, or waffles (I do). Oatmeal is all in how you make it.

Breakfast burrito,

make a scramble with mostly veggies, wrap it in a tortilla and add a touch of cheese and if you have left over cooked veggies you have a really awesome meal in less time than you think.

---
Two quick questions popped up together:
MA Dude if not for Raisin Bran I'd gain 3 pounds a day in the most horrible way possible. What's your replacement?
and
MF tell me more? what specific ingredients are so unhealthy in granola and milk?
My Reply:
MA, you like raisins right? make some oatmeal and put the raisins in while cooking. Like it cold? make it the night before and stirr in a bit of yogurt in the morning.

MF, have you ever made granola? loaded with sugars (usually from honey or other stuff) Granola is the sugared version of muselix. Aka americanized. And milk proteins elicit an insulin boost aka makes your body turn extra sugar to fat and screws up your pancreas. Fine if you've just finished a race and need to stimulate the storage pathway. Really pretty bad if you've just woken up from sleeping. (I added the Pedaling Zen Fat link here).

Good Old Brent started the humor off with this half serious softball:
When I'm in the desert I find that my ice cream melts too quickly to worry about toppings. And are you saying my Lucky Charms w/ strawberry milk isn't healthy?

My reply:
Oh Lucky Charms is the exception. Esp if you buy the hippie version in the corn plastic bag from the fancy store, and strawberry milk? Oh all that corn syrup counter acts any damage the protein might cause.

You'll be fine until you die from complications of pancreatic failure.

I don't agree with everything Bittman says but his Food Matter book really does kick some solid ass. VERY approachable solutions even for those who think cooking is women's work and are above doing much more than opening the milk and pouring some cereal in the morning.

So much of the cereal schtick is the habitualization. Actually it is probably a pretty good snack when you come home from school (as a kid) or a mid-afternoon pick-me-up snack. A bit of carbs, some fats from the whole milk, get you through to dinner if you are starving or have worked out and need something and dinner is a long way off. But to stat the day? Pretty stupid.

The ever knowledgeable and wicked skinny captain of the New England Chapter of the Manorexic association suggests a most logical solution:
well we could start with whole "just avoid grains" scenario and everybody would be healthier. some nice plain greek yogurt and chopped fruit w/walnuts. Perfect breakfast.

I'm just not sold on 'greek' style yogurt (even if some of it is made by a turk). And I countered with this bit.
Why go greek Kurt? I'm not a fan of the greek stuff. Not one bit. But then I like real yogurt. Seven Stars or Hawthorne Valley or any small local producer, plain all the way.

Avoiding grains is a good solution... a very good one actually. esp to start. slowly add back some oatmeal once or twice a week maybe...

mix it up, but never ever eat the same thing every morning. and by that I mean eating raisin bran rotated with oatmeal then granola then cheerios, then ____ isn't cutting it.

Bittman's Food Matter's book (the smaller one not the big one) is good, but there are still issues. variety, left overs, creativity.

you should be putting as much effort into your food in the creative sense of including as many veggies in Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner as you can.

And honestly.

You're far better off just having a cup of coffee in the morning. Black, or if you need to pop one sugar in there (real sugar) and skipping the food. Break the fast with something appropriate for it (like a lunch meal).

Or be super wicked smart and eat dinner meals for breakfast and slowly eat less and less during the day until you wind up with 200 calorie dinners (yogurt with some fruit maybe). But that is so SO against the grain and most people's psychological programming that it would be impossible to do.

Then one of the better questions, and one I'm not super confident about my explaination, but one that I feel is still pretty accurate. There is a good study that I found a while ago but I can't seem to find this morning that is less shaky than the one I give or can provide at the moment. Something just nags at me that it isn't an indefensible position that I've staked out on the Protein in Milk vs Yogurt (yes I admit to not being as solid on this as I would like - it is a process).

DS G, serious question: if milk is bad then why is yogurt ok? The same proteins are in each.
my reply:
The proteins in yogurt are partially digested by the bacterial culture. In essence denaturing the active/and hormone pathway chemistry. Like Parmesan cheese, or any aged hard cheese. The proteins are denatured and broken down into just about simple amino acid blocks.

Yogurt is digested milk. The bacteria do the pre-digesting for you. Rendering the insulin spiking hormones more or less harmless, and the harder to digest compounds in the cow milk into more human compatible components.

Animal milk from Goats and Sheep don't seem to have the same issue as cows. But then those animals aren't trying to turn a baby into a 2 ton monster in a year (okay maybe 1 ton in a year).
followed quickly by this:
DS I dunno. From my (admittedly amateur) knowledge of food science this doesn't make much sense to me. I thought that the action of the fermenting bacteria created lactic acid, which promotes denaturing so that the casein can form a network... hence the gel-like consistency. The denaturing doesn't alter the chemistry of the protein, just the shape.

Also, don't bacteria eat sugars, not proteins?

And lastly, according to this theory, you're saying that the proteins are either broken down into different compounds by the bacteria or changed in a way that prevents them from being broken down into the "bad" hormone-like compounds in milk?

My reply (the one I'm still pondering and digging for the original citation info):
DS, to make a protein group non-functional all you have to do is change its shape. even better? link it together. Bacteria certainly are fueled by carbohydrates (generally) but they need a bit more than just sugar to survive. once you change the shape of the reactive site and the functional groups the proteins may still be the same but they don't act the same anymore.

EH I *like* milk. And Cheerios.
Sure, Golden Grahams aren't good for you. But you don't need to eat soyjuice and fiber sticks just to stay healthy.

Besides, "not even granola?" Granola (mass produced) is usually one of the worst.
My reply:
EH - you're not getting it. No cereals, no milk substitute, no milk (except in small quantities -less than 8oz, more than that and you get more calcium than your body can absorb and you actually will have no benefit from the extra other than calories).

Like I've been saying (and the big reason it is so emotionally charged): the reason people hold onto it is because of a psycological need, nothing else. If you step back and look at it, there isn't anything worse you can start the day off with (bowl of cold cereal and milk - esp skim milk).
Wicked smart old fast dude (he might not be any of those but i'll give him the benefit of the doubt) ZC adds:
Whole milk gets a bad rap. Sure, if your diet isn't healthy to begin with and you don't exercise, excessive milk consumption can can problems -or rather, exacerbate them: whole milk alone doesn't cause problems except for people with allergies or lactose intolerance. But for people who eat healthy and exercise regularly, a moderate amount of whole milk is far more beneficial than detrimental, with a decent balance of fat, protein, and carbohydrate. I've been drinking an 8-10 oz glass of milk every morning for over 15 years now (as well as a 8-10 oz glass of OJ) and I drink a glass after a long hard ride as well. My blood work at my last physical was described as 'so normal it's abnormal'. Don't buy into the anti-milk hype, it's merely and animal rights activist campaign to attack the dairy industry.
my quick reply:
ZC your description of how you use it is atypical and not bad. Esp as active as you are. Whole milk is fine (still causes the insulin spike but if you aren't pouring it over sugar smacks it is less of an issue). And we've been over the orange juice before.

Here's a few of the links that offer some background. Milk isn't bad, it can have a place in the meal plan, just not on top of a big pile of frosted flakes. This is one of the earlier places, just one guy's blog but still pretty good.
There's actually some solid research in the AJCN. But the Paleo folks have done a decent job of explaining and identifying why milk is bad (generally worse when combined with simple carbs - aka my point - cereal, in a box, is bad).
"Conclusions: Milk products appear insulinotropic as judged from 3-fold to 6-fold higher insulinemic indexes than expected from the corresponding glycemic indexes. The presence of organic acids may counteract the insulinotropic effect of milk in mixed meals."
http://www.ajcn.org/content/74/1/96.abstract

This was lunch but add it to cereal in the morning? No wonder the Cereal nation is leading the obesity epidemic.
"Conclusions:It can be concluded that the addition of whey to meals with rapidly digested and absorbed carbohydrates stimulates insulin release and reduces postprandial blood glucose excursion after a lunch meal consisting of mashed potatoes and meatballs in type 2 diabetic subjects."
http://www.ajcn.org/content/82/1/69.full

Interesting read - good points in the Update. Especially profound is that spiking the insulin when you wake up may be a good thing, but not if you are eating a bunch of carbs and then sitting in a car or at a desk the rest of the morning:
http://4hourpeople.com/question/1110/tip-avoid-whey-protein-when-burning-fat

Now I owe Hill Junkie a solid thanks for offering the chance to steer that one thread back on track:
Diet fads change faster than clothing styles, dance moves and hair styles combined. Humans have been eating refined grain for at least 3000 years without detrimental impact. You'd think that if it was so bad, cultures civilized enough to support agriculture would have been selected out of existence. What has changed a lot in the last 100yrs is how sedentary we've become. How many Americans sweat hard in their daily jobs? When most of us used to actually make shit, we had to work hard. Regular exercise maintains good insulin sensitivity.

My reply, and almost nearly a concluding statement:
I'm not an anti-grain person. They have their place just not coming out of a box with cold milk in the morning, unless you've got a race or some other pending very high intensity exercise where you are going to be burning a pile of carbohydrates. Remember going for a walk will just burn fat. So does slow running/jogging. Cereal isn't good for that.

I let it stray a touch off topic but focusing on breakfast, the point being, changing your breakfast habits is a single simple way to affect a huge change.

highly active cyclists, aka bike racers fit in a different category, but until you hit the single digit body fat range take a look at your breakfast.

Grains have a place, even for breakfast. But we've only been focusing as a culture on this breakfast cereal as hard core as we have for the last 20-30 years. The bagel/muffin/donut bit is still more or less cold cereal in a different form. Whole grains. Steel cut oats, even steamed and rolled are quite different.

Simple changes can have a profound effect.