Impressionable young minds: do as I say, not as I do?

I usually have oatmeal for breakfast but decided to switch it up today and have Fiber One instead because I was too hungry to wait to cook oatmeal to the paste-like gruel the way I like it. For those of you who are not familiar, Fiber One is a very low calorie, high fiber and thus filling cereal. It's the one all the other fiber-rich cereals use as a comparison in their ads saying "would you rather eat this shredded cardboard [Fiber One], or would your rather eat our Fiber Crunch Cluster Delicious Sweetie Nam-nams?" And everyone is obviously meant to prefer the taste of the other brand, because the sole selling point of Fiber One is that it is low in calories. Even the makers of Fiber One do this in their ads.

I do actually rather like the Fiber One. I got started on it when I was losing weight and wanted a filling, low calorie breakfast... but now I've actually grown quite fond of its distinct, crunchy flavor profile. But, objectively, I agree it deserves its reputation for being the least "jazzed up" cereal out there.

Jolly, who had just had full balanced breakfast of a banana, cheerios and a faux breakfast sausage, promptly crawled over, hauled himself onto my lap, and started wailing with frustration because he also wanted some of whatever I was eating. I gave him some Fiber One twigs, figuring that the actual flavor profile of the cereal would be enough to dissuade him, or that he was just curious to experience the flavor, but, no. He cheerfully shoveled down what I am imagining is pretty well an adult-size serving (57% of the RDA of fiber for a grown-up!), howling with rage when he dropped a single precious twig or when his supply ran out.

This is rather unnecessary because if there is anything that child does not have trouble with, it's "regularity" and "feeling light and healthy" like the back of the box euphemistically exclaims with its glowing woman leaping for joy at the awesomeness of her last bowel movement. The Diaper Genie II Elite was a truly great investment because seriously, the overwhelming majority of diapers we encounter are soiled in a solid, not just a liquid way. It's a rare surprise to change a nonstinky diaper. I think our child's opportunistic frugivore lifestyle is probably to blame credit. (See also previous post about the lb of blueberries, which had predictable, black-tinged results all of yesterday.)

Additionally, we're meant to be shovelling him full of calorie-dense foods since he's a skinny little guy and dropped off his growth curves a bit at the last well-child visit. But Jolly sometimes has other ideas, though he does love cheese and carbs. At least it appears that the answer to the childhood obesity epidemic is at least partially in parents' hands... eat lots of fresh fruits, in-season veggies along with your shredded cardboard, and eventually your child will decide that because chard and other greens are on the table every other day, they must be delicious. (It's been a crazy summer weather-wise so our farmshare came last week with an email explaining mathematically why we have no tomatoes but are swimming in chard and greens.)

I'm wondering if I should take to eating my high-fiber breakfast cereals in secret, but really, that's hardly realistic when your kid gets up at 7. Instead, we should probably just buy stock in General Mills... and in diapers. And the Diaper Genie.