Fran Gardner

In a recent edition of O magazine, Mehmet Oz, the ubiquitous diet guru, suggested eating the same thing for breakfast each morning as a way to help lose weight.

His go-to breakfast: yogurt and blueberries.

Sounds good, but way boring. Here’s a list I came up with while entering a sweepstakes at www.familycircle.com/basis. The question was “what’s your go-to breakfast,” and most folks sensibly mentioned one thing—often oatmeal, which is heartening. Few would admit to Pop-Tarts.

I am freer than most to spend time with breakfast, and each day I wake up with a new craving depending on what’s in the kitchen. The thought of breakfast helps me get out of bed.

Here’s my overdone Family Circle list.

1) homemade whole-grain artisan bread/toast (will post recipe soon!)
2) multigrain cereal cooked in rice cooker (usually steel-cut oats, whole-wheat farina, and barley flakes in equal proportions)
3) seasonal fruit and cheese
4) green drink (kale and/or spinach, bok choy, or beet greens; zucchini, celery, watercress, parsley, ginger, orange juice, water; maybe some fruit)
5) buckwheat pancakes with extra egg, flax meal, pecans–with real maple syrup
6) power drink with protein powder, flaxseed meal, orange or unsweetened cranberry juice, water (and sometimes vitamin powder)
7) homemade baked beans that have cooked in a slow oven all night
8) whole-wheat bran muffins made with pumpkin or applesauce and, mixed dried fruit, and nuts (see previous post about pumpkin bran muffins)
9) traditional smoothie with banana, other fruit (berries, pineapple, papaya, summer stone fruit), OJ, yogurt. Sometimes I add coconut, flax meal, protein powder…
10) omelet with plenty of chopped vegetables. Sometimes add cheese.

I didn’t list dry cereal, although I very occasionally have bran flakes or Uncle Sam with added flax meal, dried fruit (apricots, raisins, dates), walnuts, and milk or yogurt.

Growing up in Minnesota, we children had hot cereal for breakfast. Cold cereal, generically referred to as “kix,” was for bedtime snacking only. I remember Cheerios, the real Kix, shredded wheat, and varieties of Chex. Sugar-Frosted Flakes or other sugary cereals were a rare treat,  more like an experiment. Froot Loops were really weird, and nobody liked Cocoa Krispies. Sugar Pops were OK, but who would eat Cap’n Crunch? Yet they’re still making it.

Have you got a favorite cereal or breakfast? Please add a comment.

One more breakfast: Orange Julius, a frothy delight of OJ, egg, and sweetener. We’re not supposed to eat raw eggs anymore, but sometimes I take a chance with organic eggs from a small local producer. In the late ’60s, there was an Orange Julius cart in a shopping mall in Visalia, Calif., a short drive from the family home in Tulare. You could watch it being made in a blender with fresh-squeezed orange juice, real raw eggs, and a “secret powder” that the man—was he a barista? orangista?—making it told me it was just powdered sugar.