Bacon and eggs aren't good for you

It's obvious, right?  Heck, anyone will tell you that bacon and eggs are bad for you.

The wonderful thing is this little gem of wisdom is usually delivered by someone who would much prefer you eat cereal for breakfast.  Genius.  And with that last comment, I'm coming dangerously close to pegging my sarcasmeter...or is it sarcasmometer?

So, here's the reality check, let's take it point by point:

Cereal:  What is it?  Well, it's healthy grains, and maybe a little sugar and other stuff, right?

Uh...not really.  It's so easy to pick up a box of cereal in the store and we're conditioned to believe what's in the store is food.  What are we REALLY feeding ourselves, or perhaps our children?

I chose a cereal at random.  Really.  I googled "cereal" and there was a link to "SpecialK" which I clicked on.  At their site they listed cereals, and I didn't quite go random this time, I actually chose what sounded tasty to me.  "Special K Vanilla Almond Cereal"  I like almonds, I like vanilla, this sounds yummy!

Now what do I get for my money?  Whole grains?  Check.  Rice?  Check.  Almonds?  Check.  Well, they're honey roasted almonds...so let's start our trip down the rabbit hole.

The almonds have their own list of ingredients.  That's right, just the honey roasted almonds have:

DRY ROASTED ALMONDS, SUGAR, HONEY, MALTODEXTRIN, SALT, BHT FOR FRESHNESS

That's just the "Almond" part of "Vanilla Almond Cereal!"  Wow, if I was making something with almonds, I'd put (drumroll please...) almonds in it.

Back up the rabbit hole, we find that the list of ingredients is quite impressive.  Heck, I'll just throw the whole thing out here for the fun of it:


RICE, WHOLE GRAIN WHEAT, SUGAR, HONEY ROASTED SLICED ALMONDS (DRY ROASTED ALMONDS, SUGAR, HONEY, MALTODEXTRIN, SALT, BHT FOR FRESHNESS), WHEAT BRAN, SALT, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, SOLUBLE WHEAT FIBER, MALT FLAVORING, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, ASCORBIC ACID (VITAMIN C), REDUCED IRON, NIACINAMIDE, PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B6), RIBOFLAVIN (VITAMIN B2), THIAMIN HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B1), VITAMIN A PALMITATE, BHT (PRESERVATIVE), FOLIC ACID, VITAMIN D, VITAMIN B12

Don't believe me?  Check it yourself here.

Is that amazing, or what?  In case you weren't aware, ingredients are listed in order of the percentage by which they constitute the product.  So It has more rice than whole grain wheat, as an example.  That means it has more rice, wheat, and sugar than it does almonds!  It then has more wheat bran, salt, high fructose corn syrup, and wheat fiber before it gets to the malt flavor and "natural and artificial" flavors.

Well, I was sold on the vanilla almond part.  That was what made me choose the cereal.  I guess all the rest comes along for the ride.

So they took processed grains that don't exist in natue in quantites sufficient to live on and they combined that with processed and concentrated sugar and then added some almonds that had been similarly modified.  Then they added some more grains (wheat bran) and salt, and even before flavoring they added some high fructose corn syrup.  None of this is NATURAL.  In fact, none of it really even food.  Well, the almonds were until they got screwed over and turned into sugary nuggets.

So this concoction makes its way to our bowl, and we scoop it up and eat it, right?

No!  We first have to cover it with mammal-squirts.  Well, actually, we don't even do that, do we?  That wouldn't be processed enough. I'd be fine with some raw milk, but that's not what's going on the cereal is it?

We can't just get the mammal to squirt right on the cereal, so we get a machine to suck the squirts out and put it in a big holding tank.  The combined squirts of many mammals then gets homogenized.  That sounds healthy, but what is it?  Oh, the squirts are just forced through a tiny orifice under pressure to break apart the larger fat globules.  They're homogenized, meaning made to all be the same.  Meaning, not in their natural form.

If that's not enough modification, the squirts are then heated sufficiently that it destroys the enzymes that help digestion and absorption.  Then it's finally good enough to be poured over those processed grain/sugar/corn syrup nuggets.

So processed food pieces covered in processed mammal squirts, none of which could have been produced without modern day machinery, chemicals, etc.  That's a healthy way to start your day.  Sure it is.  None of this exists in nature and I'm going to say a breakfast like this just isn't natural.

Now is it possible to find a pig, kill it, and snatch some eggs from a nest?  I think so.  And while I don't do that to serve myself bacon and eggs, I think it's a hell of a lot closer to nature than the crap I described earlier.

Is it a wild pig?  No.  Is it a wild bird?  No.  Is it better than sugar/wheat/corn/chemical nuggets with homogenized and pasteurized milk?  I'm confident it is.