Confluence

Some call it zeitgeist, or serendipity.  I'm calling it confluence today.  It's where all of a sudden, ideas start appearing, seemingly randomly, and all are pointing at an idea.

I've been experiencing this lately.

The idea is answering a call, and yes, this does apply to breakfast.

Not to get too personal, let's just say that the call that I am answering is my job as a mother.  Sometimes, usually in the two dark months after Christmas, I tend to get the winter blues.  Part of it could be due to lack of fresh air and sunshine, part of it to the post-holiday letdown, though I would definitely say that has decreased over the years.  And part of it is the prospect of three more months of this weather until things just begin to get better.  Definitely retiring somewhere warm year-round.

Back to the call.  Why am I here?  What is my  purpose in life?  (I am getting to breakfast.  Bear with me.)  What in my life is meaningful?  Purposeful?  Why do I get up every morning?  This is something that each of us, at some stage - if we reflect at all - must face.  And the midst of the winter blues brings this kind of reflection to the fore.  I am here because I have a very big job to do: raise my sons to be healthy, whole, productive, and happy beings.  My job happens to be harder than some other mothers' and not as hard as others.  I have daily challenges.  I can crumple, or I can soldier on.  I choose to soldier on, though it is often by will alone that I do so in January and February.

Confluence: what was that all about?  Things run across my path.  I was at Mass yesterday, and the theme was answering the call.  I have been reading things, and those things point to my call.  Notably, I just finished the book version of Supersize Me, the documentary by Morgan Spurlock about his month of eating only McDonald's food and upping the portion when it is offered.  The upshot is that he gained an enormous amount of weight and did some major damage to his health.  In the book, titled Don't Eat This Book, he tackles many other facets of America's problem with bad eating and overall bad living.

My call is not just to avoid fast food, though I do, despite the whine factor, despite non-stop media bombardment.  My call is, among many other things, to provide food which will be the most beneficial to my family.  It must be nutritious and satisfying on all levels, even if it isn't featured on TV or accompanied by a toy.

My particular job is to make sure that my ADHD child gets a good whallop of protein in the morning to help him focus just a little bit better.  And it has to be appealing and tasty or he'll have none of it.  And it has to be joyous, a tiny morning celebration, or the day will never go in a positive direction.  I have talked before about making the morning breakfast an early version of the Family Dinner Table.  I can carve out time in the morning to at least sip that second cup of coffee while breakfast is going on, and to make pleasant conversation anticipating the events of the day, making a few jokes, and in general easing everyone into a state of mind to take on the world.

It's a tall order, and it occupies a great deal of my brain.  I also need variety, if only to keep my own psyche stimulated.

I was at first reluctant to talk about this, afraid that I would sound preachy or over proud, but then I reckoned that my thoughts might be the bit of information traveling across someone else's path to add to her own confluence.  If you've hung in so far, thank you.  On to the preaching (or motiviation.)  If you are the primary care-giver in your home, ask yourself where your strengths are.  We are all going to excel in some areas and need improvement in others.  Of late, I have been a pretty good home-manager.  I have gotten us fairly organized.  I keep a multitude of appointments each week, and I am on time, pay on schedule, and keep good records.  I get three meals on the table seven days a week.  My grocery bill is high, but not as high as an eating out bill would be.  My family consumes well above the national average in fruits, veggies, and whole grains.

On the minus side, I am not as patient with the delights of a child as some would be.  I get bored playing blocks or legos, or pushing cars and trucks around.  I don't do that as well as I should.  I like to escape to my books as soon as possible.

Whatever your own weakness, are you at all able to make it better?  Are there some tiny steps you can take to make your own home a little easier to live in?  More joyous?  Healthier?  Less stressful?  Are there things you could give up?  Are there things that are non-negotiable?  Baby, it's cold outside.  Take some time to think about this while cooped up indoors.  What is truly important?  If your world crashed on you tomorrow, what would you hold onto?  In ten years, what will you regret?  What will you be proud about?

Are you answering your own call?  Honestly?  Are you striving?

Back to breakfast: In my quest of the Holy Grail (or Grails) of breakfasts, I have stumbled on a few of late.  Stirring vanilla protein powder in a bowl of oatmeal makes Cool Guy happy while adding the protein he needs.  He likes the added vanilla flavor, and I like that it holds him until lunch.  Do I notice any discernible difference in his focus?  Not that I can tell, but then who knows how scattered he'd be without it?

The second uber-breakfast was recently discovered.  This is called a Bird's Nest.  You butter a slice of toast and then tear it up into pieces into a bowl.  Add a 3-minute egg on top, to be the egg in the nest, and then pour a little syrup over it.  When you break the egg, most of yolk soaks into the syrupy toast, and you have an absolutely wonderful taste treat.  It is comfort food at its finest.  The presentation is happy, the taste is sublime.  If the toast is whole wheat, and you include a glass of juice and a fruit, you have a perfect breakfast. Kid-appealing, good for you, better than fast food, and it only takes 5 minutes, start to finish.

If I have inspired you to examine your own calling, I am glad.  I would love to continue this conversation further.  If I have inspired you only to try the Bird's Nest, then that is enough.

Tweaks

I'm interrupting my 5S series for a bit about tweaks to breakfast.  I've done two lately, and they've been huge successes, so I'm sharing them to inspire you to devise tweaks of your own.

Tweak #1: Mary Poppins says a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, but around here, all it takes is a spoonful of pork, preferably in the bacon or sausage category.  Here's the story.  I had some leftover cooked  sausage in the fridge and wondered what in the heck to do with it.  Sure, I could put it in an omelet, but I don't do omelets.  Lots of other ways to use it, but I ran across an idea from A Real American Breakfast.  This is one of those fantasy cookbooks, where only in my fantasies would I be cooking like this.  After all, I have lots of other things to do, and there are still only 24 hours per day.  However, I was glancing through and saw that they stuffed cooked sausage in the center of baked apples.  Up to this point, boys have refused baked apples.  I've tried stuffing them with brown sugar, raisins, pecans, cinnamon, all of the above, and no dice.  "What the hey," I thought, "can't hurt to try."  Let me tell you, those apples disappeared in nano-seconds.  Wish I'd made more.  Brown sugar won't do it, but sausage does.

This is super easy to make; all you need is to be awake an hour before eating.

1. Have some cooked, crumbled sausage left over.  You don't need much.
2. Peel the apple, just a circle off the top of it.  This helps keep it from splitting open.
3. Take a melon baller if you have one, and use that to scoop out the core.  This makes it so easy.  Be sure to leave the bottom intact.
4. Stuff a little sausage in the middle, up to the top of the apple.
5. Now place apple or apples in a pan with just a little water in the bottom, and bake at 350 covered for 30 minutes.  Then remove the cover and bake another 15 to brown things up.

That's it.  The only real work is coring the apples, which will take you about 5 minutes.  After that, the oven does the work, while you make coffee, and work your crossword puzzle.  And it is so worth it.

Tweak #2: The Mmmelvis.  This is named after the Elvis bagel plus our common first inital.  And you say "Mmmm" after eating it.  Get it?  Here, I was just make the ol' Elvis bagel and on a whim decided to add a few chocolate chips to the mix.  What a hit!  One caveat: you may not want your bagel toasted.  When I tried that, the peanut butter, and banana, and chips all kindof slid off the thing into a puddly mess.  Cool Guy was not amused.  So Mmmelvis is better eaten non-toasted for those who prefer not to get messy hands.

Tweaking is fun, and breakfast is so forgiving, that you should really try it sometime.  And if, as when I tried adding rhubarb to the oatmeal, it turns out a disaster according to the peanut gallery, there's always cold cereal to fall back on.  And life goes on.

A SNAFU and Blue Eggs

I don't do Daylight Savings Time well.  The older I get, the harder it is for me to recover from that lost hour.  Part of the problem, I know, is my forgetfulness, and I forgot to set some crucial clocks forward.  So not only did I have trouble sleeping because the heater hadn't kicked off, but then my alarm which I NEEDED today due to tossing and turning, chimed in right before the new 7:00 am.  Disaster!  I had a fantastic breakfast planned, and now I only had time to scurry around and pour Rice Crispies.  And exhort the boys to hurry, hurry, hurry.  Yeck.  What a lousy way to start a week.

I do, however, have some breafasts from happier mornings on my backlog, so I'm going to step into the blogger's time machine, pull up a draft, and tell you about the blue eggs we had last Friday when that lost hour hadn't lost itself yet.

My friend Marilyn told me not so long ago, that when her kids were growing up, her husband always made scrambled eggs on Saturdays.  That was a given.  The unknown was what COLOR they would be.  I've got to try that, I said to myself.  The boys will love it!

Well, yes and no.  I did try it today (note: last Friday), and it WAS fun.  Just basic scrambled eggs with a little blue liquid food coloring dropped in while I was whisking the eggs.  They were a greenish blue, probably due to mixing with the yellow egg yolks.  And it was certainly a surprise for the boys.  Cool Guy got a big, slow smile on his face as soon as he saw them.  Encyclopedia absolutely refused to eat them.  To be honest, it was hard for me to take that first bite, but the eggs tasted just the same.  It is funny how big a role vision plays in eating our food.

"Close your eyes," I said.
"I'll still know they're blue.  I'm not eating them."

So he didn't, and Scamp had a nice morning treat.  Are dogs colorblind?  I always wondered that and wondered if they are, how do we know?  Dogs can't tell us.

Back to the eggs:  Am I going to color our scrambled eggs again?  Yes I am, sometimes.  There is nothing to be gained in this world by being always serious, always exactly so, always so dead certain straightforward.  Sometimes, and especially toward the end of a grey, wet winter, we should laugh more, do silly things, the unexpected.  Why NOT have blue eggs?

Warning: Not a Healthy Breakfast

If you are interested only in healthy breakfasts, read no further today.  This morning's feast is one I have been making since I was 10, and its two ingredients cannot be called healthy.

Anyone reading this blog for any length of time will wonder why I've posted this warning now.  After all, biscuits and gravy is not a healthy dish either.  I've decided to take a moment and define my slippery definition of "relatively healthy," which I use so often.  Here is what I strive for:

• Real food - meaning as close to its original form as possible.  Butter, therefore, is healthier in my book than margarine.
• Non-processed foods - similar to above.  If I don't know what the ingredients are, I don't want to have them.
• Whole grains - even if that means in a coffee cake
• Using fruits and vegetables
• Containing protein and/or fiber
• No disgusting amounts of sugar and/or fat

My general, though very low-reaching, yardstick is to ask myself if it is healthier than a PopTart.  Most of the time, I can say "yes."  And then there are times, like today, that I honestly don't know.  Today's breakfast fails on all the above categories, save the protein one.

Sometimes you've just got to let your hair down, throw caution to the wind and make Crescent Rolls with Devilled Ham.  There I said it.  It has canned crescent rolls made with white flour and God know what all preservatives, and canned devilled ham.  Don't even WANT to know the fat content of that.  And it is so good, so easy, and loved by all.

My friend Pam introduced me to this treat when I spent the night with her once.  I remember being so excited about this fabulous breakfast, that I raved about it at home, and my parents, God bless them, actually listened to me and bought what I needed to make it.  After that, it was a regular weekend feature at our house. 

Even after I got married, whenever Burt and I would come home to visit, this was what we were served for breakfast.  This would be an Easter morning treat, a special Sunday breakfast.

I don't CARE that it lacks anything good for me, it's MY SPECIAL BREAKFAST.  And now, I'm going to share it with you so that your arteries can harden right along with mine. 

Just kidding.  Another part of my healthy philosophy is that if I get it right 75% of the time, I'm ahead of the game.  I'll never bat 1000, and I don't want to. 

Crescent Rolls with Devilled Ham
makes 8

• 1 can of crescent rolls
• 1 4oz. can devilled ham

1. Preheat your oven to 375.

2. Separate the crescent rolls into 8 triangles.

3. Spread each triangle with devilled ham.  If you don't want it too thick, you don't have to use the whole can, but I do.

4. Roll up the crescent rolls starting at the large end of the triangle.

5. Bake for about 13 minutes.

Breakfast Music

Oatmeal again tomorrow morning per Cool Guy's request, so I thought I'd talk about another aspect of breakfast here: music in the morning.

I'm not at all a TV-in-the-morning person.  I just do not like that kind of noise before, say, 7:00 pm.  And, honestly, I'd be just fine with no sound at all except for birdsong.  But also, I feel that there is a lack of cultural enrichment going on in daily life.  Public schools now don't have art or music at all, and I wonder when and how are children going to become familiar with the good stuff?

Music is very important to me, and I want my boys to be comfortable with more than just what they hear on the radio, so I began something about a year ago that is working out rather well.  Every morning for three months, we listen to a single composer while we eat breakfast.  Right now, it's Tchaikovsky.  And The Nutcracker is the first music to play on my playlist every morning.  It is so pleasant to listen to.  Cool Guy especially loves this music and hums right along with it as he is scarfing down his oats.

Three months of the same music morning after morning?  You think I'm nuts, right?  Usually after the first week, I do too, and then it kind of grows on me (and on the boys), and as each day goes on, the music becomes more and more ingrained in us.  Right now, I can't even imagine beginning a morning without The Nutcracker playing.  And Cool Guy and I find ourselves humming it all day long.  It's really nice.  (Encyclopedia is a little jaded about the whole thing, but I have caught him also humming along when he thought I couldn't hear him.)

Some things I've found about this method:

• Instrumental works better than vocal for kids.  That opera-sounding music does not have the same appeal.
• Tuneful is better than arty.  Bach over Debussey.
• Just playing the music is enough.  No lectures, no commentary, no drawing attention to it at all.

The successes so far have been Vivaldi, Handel, Bach, Tchaikovsky.  Debussey did NOT work.  Just not something you can hum along to. 

It seems like a silly thing to do, but it is so gratifying when, sometime down the road, we hear some of that music, perhaps in a TV commercial, and the boys remember it.  It's in their bones now, and they'll always have it.  And someday when they decide not to be little heathens anymore, they will have at least this much.  They will be familiar with some great music without ever even having to work at it.  All they had to do was sit down and have breakfast.

7 Quick Takes, Breakfast Edition

#1
When I post of 7 Quick Takes, I do so under my "family and spiritual life" blog.  But about a month ago, I really, really wanted to start another blog about a passion and adventure of mine, making breakfast.  It is a lot of fun for me, so I thought I would share this blog with Jennifer's readers this week.

#2
I have found it interesting that for over a year now, I have been pouring out my heart, my deepest thoughts and musings in my other blog, and then here I just whip out a little snippet every morning on the new one, and am contacted by people a lot!  It's neat, and I think it points to a truth: food in a uniter.  Sharing meals with others will bring us closer together than anything.

#3
We are having oatmeal again for breakfast this morning, per Cool Guy's request last night.  I think it is neat the way the boys always wondering about breakfast the night before.  They really do look forward to it, much more than they look forward to lunch or dinner.

#4
Since it is a snow day today, we will be having the steel-cut oats, which I prefer but which also take longer.  I am going to try my friend Jessi's idea of stirring in Nutella and sliced bananas in mine, rather than my usual topping.  I think it will be pretty good.  Boys, of course, will remain conservative.

#5
Before starting this breakfast blog, I had no idea I was such a lousy photographer.  I try, really.  I've even looked online on tips for better food photography.  I think part of the reason is my lack of expertise, and part of the reason is that I'm not a patient, detaily person.  So, there always seems to be a stray item, like a school lunch menu or a piece of junk mail, or the timer, intruding in the picture frame, and I JUST DIDN'T SEE IT WHEN I SNAPPED THE PHOTO.  So, you want to see beautiful food photos?  Go to some other blog.  You want to read about breakfast and know that this time yours can look better than the picture, you're at the right place.

#6
Why breakfast?  You can read The Story, but in brief, I have found that my boys and I are noticeably happier and healthier when we regularly have a good, complete breakfast.  After doing a loop of eggs, sausage, pancakes, oatmeal for about a year, I thought I'd explore a little, push my definition of breakfast food a little, explore other ideas of breakfast.  I found a whole world out there in breakfast food that is just itching to be discovered.  It keeps me from getting bored, and it keeps the boys on their toes.

#7
Favorite breakfast of all time (or at least for today)
Cool Guy: oatmeal
Encyclopedia: bacon
Me: Hopple Popple
Burt: breakfast meat-eggs-toast plate of any kind.

What is your favorite breakfast?  I'd love to know!

You can find more 7 Quick Takes at Jennifer's site, most probably of greater significance than my breakfast blog.  (But it's fun.)

Breakfast Together

Today, Burt has volunteered to make oatmeal for breakfast.  He usually does this once a weekend, and it is great for me.  Regular oatmeal is not one of my favorites, but taking it easy in the morning, and needing only to sip my coffee and wait for the morning is definitely a favorite.  And also, I think that the weekly bowls of oatmeal with Burt and the boys is a nice routine for just them, and a bond.

As long as I can remember, growing up, married life, and life with children, breakfast has been a solitary affair.  As a child, while I was staring at soggy cereal in my bowl, I did it alone, or more exactly, with my sister.  As a newlywed, well, it's a long story, but Burt had brutal working hours as an ensign in the Navy, and what with training, refitting, and deployment out to sea, breakfast for each of us was alone.  Burt's hours were not conducive to having breakfast at home, and he said that he could get ready and to work faster if I would just not bother fixing him anything.  And I needed a lot of sleep back then, so I stayed in bed while he rose and ate alone.  And later, I would eat alone, reading the paper, and being perfectly content.

There is nothing wrong with some peace and quiet in the morning.  I have had it for most of my life, and I like it.  It's one of the reasons why I do get up so early in the mornings now (in addition to just plain biology, not needing as much sleep, and a back that won't take too much time lying in bed.)  I like having the time to sip coffee alone in my own thoughts, plan my day with no distractions, do some prayers or Bible reading without being interrupted, and maybe even begin a blog post or a crossword puzzle.  In the summer, I use that time to walk Scamp before it gets too hot, and then I have my coffee on the front porch listening to the birds.  Yes, I like some solitude, especially in the morning.

So it is not surprising that when babies came, they were exposed to the same kind of morning routine.  Oh, sure, there were the special years when I would hold them and give them their bottles, and the times when I would feed them those little jars of baby food, one spoonful at a time.  Those were wonderful times.  But then, as soon as each boy was old enough to feed himself, I would put his food on the table and get busy with something else, like a shower, or the dishes, or Lord Knows What.  It was always something.  And there's nothing exactly WRONG with that.  It's what we all were used to.

And then one day, sometime this past fall, I sat down and had coffee cup #2 while the boys were eating.  And it was nice.  We had breakfast together.  (Actually, I had already eaten, but 2nd cup of coffee counts.)  And I said to myself, "What's all the rush about?  Why such a hurry to get the laundry sorted?  Don't you know that they're halfway grown now, and soon, you'll have all the mornings you want to sort laundry and do dishes?  Sit down and enjoy some company, for cryin' out loud."  And I have ever since.

Sometimes I have already eaten because I'm starving, and I only have another cup of coffee.  Other times, I eat along with they boys.  And we talk, who knows what about, sometimes silly stuff and we laugh, sometimes interesting stuff like politics, and sometimes I just listen to a never-ending summary of a TV show that I have absolutely NO intererst in, but I listen.  And no one reads the paper, shutting out the others, and no one watches TV, and no one has had a chance yet in the day to get angry at anyone else.

Sometimes, I must put the food on the table and get myself ready for something, an early morning appointment, something.  But usually I manage to find that 10 or 15 minutes needed for us to breakfast together.  Really, it is such a small amount of time in the day to invest.

Maybe I'm the last mom to have figured this out.  But if I'm not, and if your usual morning does not have breakfast together at a table together, please consider giving it a try.  Yes, if you work, it will mean more for you to do in the morning.  But just like those baby bottle years, you can never have this time back.  There is only a finite number of mornings that your kids will be at your table eating breakfast as kids, and it's nice to enjoy that time with them.

An Ode to Oatmeal

Oatmeal, oatmeal, steaming bowl,
Fill me up and off I'll go.
Steamy, creamy, toothsome, sweet,
You are a morning's special treat.

Cool Guy has requested oatmeal for two days running, so today's the day.  I've been under the weather for three days now, and with my achy joints and scratchy throat, a bowl of oatmeal sounds pretty good to me, too.

I've never been that fond of oatmeal.  Burt, another oatmeal lover, requested very early in the marriage that I only buy old-fashioned oats, so I don't have anything at all to say about instant or quick.  But even old-fashioned are quick.  Once the water boils, it takes about 5 minutes with only an occassional stirring.

Last month, I bought some steel-cut, or Irish, oats and tried those out.  They take quite a bit longer to cook, about 25 minutes, following the directions on the package.  But for the first time, I really enjoyed my bowl.  They were indeed "Steamy, creamy, toothsome."  Burt still prefers the regular old-fashioned, but we can work around that.  Sometimes one way, sometimes another.

One thing about being a parent is that regardless how you feel, you still have mouths to feed, children to get ready for school, little souls to minister to.  And the way I look at it, my throat is going to hurt whether I'm lying in bed or stirring oatmeal, so we may as well get something good in our bellies (with minimal effort), and rest later in the morning.

Today's bowl of oats was the steel-cut, topped with my special oatmeal topping, and served with some fried ham slices and mandarin oranges. I wanted to try my friend Jessi's idea of serving it with Nutella and banana slices, but we're all out of Nutella.  Next time, next time.  I'm sure another bowl is on the near horizon.

Steel Cut Oats
This makes 3 generous servings or 4 measly servings

1. Bring 3 cups of water to a boil in a saucepan.

2. Add 1 cup of steel-cut oats, and turn the heat to medium.  Set the timer for 20 minutes, and give a stir every now and then.

3. During the first 10 minutes, you'll have time to cook your breakfast meat, pour juice, set the table, and set out the oatmeal toppings.

4. After about 10 minutes, you're going to need to be with the oatmeal.  Turn the heat down further, and stir pretty regularly, to keep it from sticking to the pan.

5. After the 20 minutes, turn off the heat, and let the oatmeal sit for a minute or two.

6. Pour into bowls, top with your toppings and cream or milk.  All we had in the house was 2% milk, and it was fine.

If you had a "measly serving," (1/4 of the oatmeal), you will have consumed, not counting the toppings,
170 calories
3 grams of fat (that surprised me)
5 grams of fiber
7 grams of protein

That should get you through the morning.

Picky, Picky

It is time to address picky eaters.  We all have them; we may even be one ourselves.

I'm not a child expert unless you count my experience of raising two very different boys being an expert, and I'm not a nutritionist, psychologist, or pediatrician.  Only "the mom in the kitchen," my version of Man on the Street.

Here, then, are some random thoughts.  Take them as the offerings they are.

• Most kids go through picky phases.  And like all phases, they wax and wane.  It's not worth getting too worried about.
• I am not a short-order cook.  I make one breakfast per day, with the alternative of plain Cheerios, if the breakfast I make is not to one's  liking.
• For any dish that is either new or questionable, I dish out one No-Thank-You bite.  This tip came from Meal Makeover Moms.  And I literally put one small bite, not spoonful on the boys' plates.  They take the bite and either tell me "no thank you," or they decide they like it and get some more.  It takes the pressure off everyone and greatly reduces strife at the breakfast table.
• Alternative junk in the house is minimized. Not eliminated, as we are human and enjoy a cookie now and then.
• To combat pickiness at dinner, we have a set window for snacks.  The cutoff is 2 1/2 hours before dinner.  If someone is starving before dinner, I can usually set out some carrot sticks ahead of time.
• Politeness is encouraged.  Cool Guy's mantra is "Thank you for making this, mom, but it's not my favorite."  I can live with that.
• If you serve a variety of items at breakfast, you won't have "all your eggs in one basket."  (Pardon the pun.)  So when I made the veggie egg scramble with Green Stuff in it, I also served bacon and oranges plus juice.  Encyclopedia had his one bite of eggs, said no thank you, and was satisfied with the bacon and orange.  We can all live with that.  This is especially important with serving something new or some historically disliked item.
• Kids' tastes change.  Actually, so do adults.  I won't even go into my 30-year refusal to eat corn.  What a fool I was.  Encyclopedia refused eggs for 10 years and last night asked for them for breakfast today.  Persevere.
• Excitement is contagious.  I get excited when oranges are in season.  Ditto for apples, peaches, blueberries.  I talk about it, share my enthusiasm.  And the boys also get excited.  Right now, we are each consuming about 2 oranges per day, by request.  And I KNOW they got that from me.

And one final word of advice to stiffen the spine: We are the parents, and one job of ours is to ensure that our family is fed well, with food to thrive on.  That is our calling and one of our many responsibilities.  Knowing that, it is worth the effort it takes to present food that is healthy, tasty, "real."  Food should not be a place for power struggles, and there is no accounting for tastes.  Each should be able to decide what and how much to eat, but as long as the options are consistent, like my plain Cheerios option, variety available, and the cook emotionally detached (really, it's not personal), breakfast can be joyful time.

Do you have any tips for dealing with picky eaters?  Please let me know!

Further Proof

I got my Eating Well in the mail yesterday and got into my Mom Cave last night to read it.  What do you know, someone had written in asking if it was really healthiest to eat breakfast.  I think common wisdom would give us a resounding "yes," but The Nutritionist gave thorough answers based on many studies.

I'll summarize:
1. People who eat breakfast regularly are leaner.
2. Breakfasters lose weight and keep it off more easily.
3. People who eat breakfast consume more fiber, calcium, vitamins A and C, and other good things.
4. They also consume less fat and cholesterol.
5. They also have less incidence of the bad cholesterol, compared with those layabout breakfast skippers.
6. Same layabouts have more belly fat.
7. I'm not making any judgements on anyone, BTW.
8. More than one study shows that eating breakfast increases focus and mood.

And one word of advice: if you're not hungry right away, eat a little later in the morning, but EAT, DARNIT.  Make sure you're eating fiber and protein and not donuts chased by a Mountain Dew.

I think we all know in theory that eating breakfast is better for you than skipping it, and I think we all know in theory that eating a healthy, rib-sticking breakfast is better than a processed food breakfast.  And we all know that baby steps are easier to accomplish than giant sweeping reforms.  My challenge to you is to decide on a baby step and do it for awhile, maybe a month, and see how much better you feel and/or how much more smoothly things go in your day.

Here are some suggestions:
1. Get up 20 minutes earlier once a week to allow time to cook a good breakfast.
2. Get breakfast prep done the night before once a week so that a good breakfast can be ready in a flash.
3. Make eggs once a week, any style.
4. Make whole grain muffins on the weekend and freeze them to have during the week.
5. Make homemade granola (recipes abound on the web) on the weekend to have on those harried mornings.

This is just a list of ideas to get you started thinking of your own baby steps.  Just start, that's the point, and if you don't make it one day, it's no biggie.  Heck, no one expects wonders for breakfast anyway, so any upgrade is going to be super-appreciated.

I think you will find that the more you do, the more you'll get out of it.  At least that's how it works around here. 

Have fun, and I hope someone lets me know how it's going.