For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for October 16, 2017

I wonder if Canada sells Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs. (I don’t buy nor eat much “healthy” cereal to which Liz is referring. I go for Corn Flakes, Rice Crispies, Special K, Basic Four, Muesli, Wheaties, Corn Chex, Wheat Chex, Cheerios, Multi-Grain Cheerios, Crispix, Kix, whatever suits my fancy.)

I love these kinds of strips. Let’s see what we have:

1st row (left to right)

Cheesy(Cherry) Planet

Can’t read the name. Something with a space ship launching into space.

Wow. A cereal bowl with a shadow that indicates the bowl has jumped into the air.

Something Doos – With what appears to be 2 shrunken heads

Sugar Soggs – A clown face with a dog nose.

Honey Zonks – Featuring a maniacal face, a disembodied hand holding either a pizza cutter or a scooper with cereal in it.

Mallow Munchies – A happy person with an open mouth and their nose in the air throwing cereal above their head.

Unknown: Good for you when milk added.

Unknown: 100% Nutrition Free.

Oats and Groats

Corn Flakes

2nd row (left to right)

BLAM!! With a picture of a mushroom cloud. (This is actually my favourite one.)

Choko Chunk-A-Roo – It looks like either a man in blackface or one of those Dia de los Muertos skeletons

Fruissy Wootoies – Look like series of animal heads in a cereal bowl

Karamel Koated Sugar Poofs –with a cloud-like thing around the word Poofs

Captain Calories – A pirate with missing teeth, an eye patch, and a missing jawline.

Fruit Toots – Featuring a bowl with a snake and bird battling on top of the cereal

Nootra Bran Vitamins Minerals – instead of bowl, we get a pot with handles on both sides holding cereal.

Whole Grain Cereal – with a picture of a grain sack with wheat stalks popping out.

Shredded Wheat: Smiley-faced Sun licking his lips in anticipation as he eats a bowl of cereal.

3rd row(left to right)

Sugar something. That’s all I can see.

In the cart:

Granny’s Granola

Good-for-nothing.

Lizzy’s interpretation of “good” differs by a country mile from her mother’s.

I’m with lobogrande. Plus I think Calvin would want to live here

Good is what you like, not necessarily what is good for you.Being an adult is choosing the later, not the former.

I have to do they no salt cereal thing. Plain Shredded Wheat’s, Puffed Rice or Puffed Wheat, cooked Old Fashioned Oat Meal. If you know of any others, tell me.

I read once where kids’ “cereal” should really be called “oat/corn/wheat/rice-flavored candy”.

There’s a difference to the palate between “good” and “healthy”.

When you walk down the cereal aisle in the grocery store, pay attention to the placement of the types of cereal. All of the sugary or flavored ones are at kids eye level while all of the nutritious ones are on the top shelf where the kids won’t notice them at all.

I like the one whose bottom half says, “100% nutrition free!”.

Lynn’s Notes:

The best part of a strip like this is making up the names of the cereals.

The box that says “good for you when milk added” caught my attention.So true! Typically,milk is the only nutrition in a bowl of cereal. I like yogurt and fruit for breakfast,maybe some rye toast washed down with coffee,and a probiotic.

In looking at nutrition labels in the cereal aisle, I’m saddened at how much turns out to be junk food. That cereal Mikey likes is 19% sugar. A big surprise was finding out granola is 40% sugar!

Values.

Lots of the granola cereals are very pricey compared to the regular, advertised brands.

Remember Sugar Pops? They’re still here – rebranded Corn Pops when sugar became a No-no! I’m waiting for a researcher to find something bad about oats – then we’ll see Cher—— contains no oats, never have, never will!

Looking at all the names of cereals here. Does anybody here remember “Kaboom?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xwu4LnrklJc

Those were the days.

@ night-gaunt49: I remember Lynn saying that long time ago, and she added that she wanted to make the name close enough to a real product without endorsing any one in particular…

Our kids never liked prepared cereals for breakfasts or snacks. I’m glad for that. Same goes for me and the rest of the family. For example I have a peanut butter sandwich from one half of the slice of bread. I might have a third of a homemade cheese Danish. Sometimes I have some kind of meat, like sliced turkey, sandwich. What I love best, and our kids did too, was left over pizza or take out Chinese food warmed up in the toaster oven or micro oven. If I have time, I take the leftover rice, with a little bit of water on the bottom, then top that with the leftover chicken, carrots and peas, and let them steam in the small pan while I get everything else ready, then the food is all warm and cozy, even in the summer, and eat that. It keeps me going till about 2 pm

By “good” she means full of sugar. You really can’t find any healthy cereal except oatmeal. Unless you get the stuff in packets with flavor already added you can control how much sugar (brown sugar) goes in and there are many things to add to make it tasty. Honey is way better than sugar.

Jack Lalanne’s advice on food: “If it tastes good, spit it out.”

My mom usually bought the bran cereals, but if dad did the shopping, I could get Cap’n Crunch from him. >:-)

Elizabeth needs to understand that most of those cereals on the shelf are bag for you. If she eats all that sugar, her blood pressure will soon be as high as Elly’s.