My husband is normally up and gone an hour before we even get up in the mornings, but last week saw him drinking coffee in the kitchen one day as the kids headed off to school. The kids waved out the door, he drank down his coffee, and as he kissed me goodbye, he said "I am SO, SO SORRY, Beck." And that is because mornings here are just awful.
I am not a morning person. Not one of my children is a morning person. And in the short hour between getting up and leaving, they have to get their clothes on, brush their hair and teeth, and eat their breakfast – a monumental, horrific task, apparently. Most mornings see us just barely making it, and me collapsing into an exhausted heap as soon as they're out the door, my throat raspy from all of the loud encouraging I'd been doing. It is the hard part of my day, and even saying that makes me feel silly since it's not actually hard. It is, however, very very annoying. VERY.
In my rare moments of self-awareness, I know that certain things I do make mornings harder- like, for example, our cereal ban. No Boxed Cereals on Mornings, I cry! They are crap! Over-priced, over-processed, under-nutritious crap! And so I make the kids a hot breakfast every freaking morning, oatmeal or cream of wheat (which I loathed so much as a kid – OH I STILL DO – that I called it "cream of punishment" and yet my children actually LOVE) or whole wheat English muffins with scrambled eggs or fruit smoothies or whatever, and yes, it makes my life that much harder than it actually needs to be.
There's a price to every choice we make in life, these little unseen costs that can add up while we're not paying attention. Let's take boxed cereal – on the one side, my children would probably eat a heaping bowl of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs with substantially more enthusiasm than they greeted my spinach smoothie experimenting phase and it would make our mornings much easier than they currently are. And yes, I am aware that there are some quite healthy cereals out there. So what's the cost on the other side?
The answer: on its own, probably none. But how about when we relinquish all control of the food in our houses, when we start living on a combination of frozen foods and take-out and restaurant meals - what cost does that carry?
The actual financial cost is, of course, unbelievable. We would easily go through 3 380 g boxes of cereal a week, which run us about $5 a box locally – to a cost of $60 a month for cereal alone. Our current oatmeal-eggs-toast breakfasts probably cost us that in a YEAR. (Or maybe not. But they're cheaper, anyhow.) Eating at a popular fast food chain now costs us at least $25 for a meal – several of those a week would easily add an additional $400 onto our monthly grocery bill. And so the price we pay for convenience is actually money, and lots of it.
There is the health cost. I read recently about a popular commercially-available muffin that has the same calories and FAT as a popular fast-food hamburger. Good grief!
I have spent the last year and a half writing right here about products that can make producing healthier meals for your family easier (my most-recommended product? Likely the rice cooker. We use it ALL THE TIME), and they certain can. You can't remove all of the effort from making a from-scratch meal, though – there will be some work involved. And I think that is likely a good thing.
I've mentioned before that I grew up on a farm, where I was possibly the world's least enthusiastic farm girl. I'm phobic about animals and fastidious about dirt and easily spooked and wilt in… well, pretty much any sort of weather, and so my parents gave me a pass and probably wondered what they'd done to deserve me. But even I figured out that food takes a lot of effort to produce – fields must be tilled in the heat and the rain, large and dangerous animals must be cajoled and cared for, vegetables and fruits planted and picked.
This simple work – chopping vegetables, cooking rice – ties us into the quotidian reality, into our humble lives – better than anything else. Who knows how many generations of mothers before me stood at their stoves on bitter winter mornings, making hot oatmeal to warm their children before they went out into the cold world? Who knows how many generations of children will follow after me, eating oatmeal as they stare out into the snowy morning? And in the background, their mother or father bustling around, irritated with the morning rush and wondering why they don't just give in and buy whatever freaky future food is popular.
And so I guess the final cost is a moral one: if food is too easy, we run the risk of forgetting that our food was raised by the work on human hands, that the meat on our plate was once an animal who stood eating grass on a sunny hill (or who deserved to have that life, at the very least), that everything did not just magically appear at the store without work or effort or cost. Everything ends up costing something, but only this gives you an onion whole and round and cushioned in golden papery skin, the humble everyday magic of real foods filling your house and your children.
I go with your words “if food is too easy, we run the risk of forgetting that our food was raised by the work on human hands”. At times we are not appreiciated for that delicious lunch served to our family or at times even to the guests. Its so frustrating after all the hardwork in preparing the meal. Many think a meal is prepared instantly with knuckle shot.
You can make overnight steel cut oats and red river cereal easily without a crock pot too. You bring the water to a boil, dump in the cereal, stir, cover, turn off heat. In the morning you only have to add a little more water (to the consistency you prefer) and warm it up, voila hot cereal in 10 minutes.
One of my favourite things about visiting certain friends of ours is the effort she goes to in making breakfast special every morning. Last time, she fed us hot porridge with all sorts of tasty toppings even though her husband HATES it because his mother made him eat it every morning as a kid. I hope to go the hot breakfast route at least a few mornings a week when the kids get older (though I’m in the same un-morning-person boat as you). Luckily, living here for the moment, our cereal is WAY the heck cheaper than yours. I always have sticker shock when I go out for groceries with Mom when I’m home. Yikes!
Gak. I TRY to get my kids to eat packaged breakfast cereal (of the more healthy variety: no choco-bombs at least) but the little buggers don’t like it! They want waffles and pancakes and whatnot in the mornings. So I take out my trusty griddler (tied for most-used kitchen appliance in my house along with the rice cooker) and make dozens of pancakes and then freeze them in groups of four in ziploc bags. In the morning into the toaster they go and voila.
Oh, and by the way, I’m with your kids. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Cream of Wheat. And Red River cereal, too. YUM.
My three are all grownup and gone. Now it is just me…Enjoy the noise while you can!
I used to make french toast and bake it in the oven. Prepare everything the night ahead. My oven will turn on at a preset time, so pop the pan into the oven when you get up. By the time you are dressed and coffee’d the breakfast is cooked for the babies. Only one pan to wash and very tasty. Sometimes, I would put pineapple rings in the pan first so that it would be pineapple upside down french toast.
Great post! I don’t have kids yet but when I do, I hope I will have the energy to make them a home-made wholesome (less expensive) breakfast.
We walk the line, and totter a lot, a few boxes here, a lot of food from the hand there. We’re trying.
It’s a great point that you make. My kids do breakfast twice. Once at home (and always something fast, I totally grew up reading the back of the box while I ate my cereal) and then one at church, where I drop them off in the mornings. I do plenty of loud encouraging myself though, usually along the lines of, “How many times do I have to tell you to put on your shoes???”
Great post Beck.
I completely agree that making dinner out of actual food is way healthier. However, I love cereal. And not the sugar cereals–we don’t have them in our house. I also am able to get them for ~$1 a box with sales and coupons so price is not an issue.
However, I do agree with the sentiment of the post.
You really got me with that last paragraph Beck. Wow! Beautiful.
And this is how you should write a cookbook, Beck. One page of THIS you wrote here… followed by several whole grain recipes that you make in the infamous RICE COOKER. I would buy it RIGHT NOW if only you would write it.
You can tell how passionately I feel about it by all my CAPS. 😉
I’ve never thought of it this way. Interesting.
I have never been so happy in my entire life.
We have gone both ways. We have gone through phases of boxed cereal (healthy, low or no added sugar, usually some sort of generic muesli) and through phases of hot breakfasts, and that works for us. I live overseas so I make everything from scratch pretty much; I have to make my own salsa and tortillas, for example, and no microwave popcorn. But I agree; there is something so satisfying about cooking for my family. I like to send my kids off with warm stomachs from hot oatmeal and cocoa (not nutritious, but warming and appreciated) on these cold mornings.
Hmmm….sounds a lot like (just like) mornings at our house. On the occasion that I do give them cereal (organic, low sugar, of course) I’m amazed at how much more time I have. What we are giving up though, is a good healthy meal that will get them through until lunch. I feel so guilty that they are not getting all that they need in the way of protein if I just feed them cereal. I have done the crock pot/rice cooker (yes, both) method and it works like a charm, saving me lots of morning time (add dried fruit and ground nuts and seeds for fiber and protein). I also make my own yogurt and add a tablespoon or two of good quality granola for breakfast. This is just as fast as cereal and makes me feel so much better.
You are on the right track! If only more people made such an effort. Oh, the healthy children they would have. My husband swears that what I feed the kids keeps them more healthy or helps them recover more quickly from a sickness.
Great Food for thought.
Thankyou
Kellie
http://www.momranoutscreaming.com
Wonderful.
If cereal is expensive, granola bars are astronomical. And even easier to feed kids than pouring out cereal and pouring on milk. Just grab one out of the box, split the wrapper and hand it over.
When we lived in ND for four excrutiatingly cold years I fed my DH oatmeal for the first few months we were married, so he could work outdoors in the winter in 50 degrees below zero, before he finally told me having hot gruel in his stomach did not keep him any warmer. It still made me feel like I was doing a better job of being wifey. So I switched to the kids who werent even going outdoors. Now I feed it to myself, whether it’s cold or not. Maybe it’s just the oatmeal, that act of cooking up something that’s been around for centuries.
As always nice to hear you rant a little.
I was ten before I learned that people make cakes “from scratch” (which is a really odd phrase) vs. a box of mix you bought at the grocery store. Who knew?
I like to split the difference with muffins or quick breads I’ve made ahead of time.
I am NOT a morning person, but everyone else in my family is. It can get ugly when our personalities collide at 6:30 am.
Although we do have a lot of boxed cereal around, I agree with you about not making food too easy. We don’t eat out much at all and almost all meals are 100% from scratch. I do it for our health, but also find it a less expensive way to go. Most days we don’t walk in the door until about 5:45, but with some planning, we still have a home-cooked meal on the table by 6:30.
Great post. My kids do eat plenty of cereal though. A lot of it’s healthy, some of it’s not. The rest of our meals have not succumbed to what you describe. I agree it’s something to be wary of. I would love to make my kids a hot breakfast every morning, but I’m afraid it would turn our mornings into exactly what you’ve talked about. Plus, my kids would see oatmeal and cream of wheat as cream of punishment as well. As it is, we have lovely, calm, mornings, most of the time. Of course, my husband hardly ever eats breakfast, and my high schooler grabs something–an oatmeal breakfast cookie, a muffin, a bagel as she heads out the door at 7. I’d love to change it, just not enough to pay the hidden cost of morning chaos.
Thanks for another thought-provoking post. This past year we have broken the restaurant habit, and we never had the processed foods habit–yuck. It makes me so sad that so many people truly think boxed mashed potatoes are easier than making your own and that they taste the same. That’s only one example, but it’s the kind of thing that really bothers me. There’s a whole generation of people growing up thinking that cooking is just too complicated. Sad. Filled with lots of hidden and not so hidden costs.
I can commiserate with you on the whole push-pull feeling about it…when I had my daughter, (now 6), I made the decision that while I wasn’t going to be a June Cleaver, I was going to be a sort of hybrid version. So here I am, now a single-mom of two (my son is almost 2) trying just to make sure that I don’t forget my pants in the morning…waking up a whole 30 mins earlier just to make sure that not only is there oatmeal…or Cream of Wheat or semolina or corn meal or whatever else I can turn into a porridge…hot on the table, but I also send hot lunches with my in-house food critic (read: daughter).
There is often a moment, normally after I’ve been burnt by oatmeal splatter (don’t make porridge without your shirt on), where I ask myself if I’m crazy…and then I look at their faces, cheeks plump with whole grain and eyes shining with all the Omega 3’s they can hold…and feel their chubby arms as they squeeze me with hugs…and I realize that it is.
Hello–popping over from Twitter. I just thought since you use the rice cooker, you might want to try making your oatmeal overnight with it (or the crockpot) using the following method. It will allow you to enjoy that hot breakfast without the hassle in the morning. It’s just minimal hassle in the evening, go to bed, wake up–yummy hot oatmeal ready to serve! I use the crockpot method explained in this post at my blog (hope you don’t mind the link):
http://annkroeker.wordpress.com/2008/03/25/overnight-crockpot-steel-cut-oatmeal/
Oh goody. Can I join this rant? I know you are not sorry for the choice you have made, but sometimes our choices give us hard things, even though we know it’s totally worth it, so I understand. I feel the same way. We DO have boxed cereal at our house. I tried to cook breakfast, but I completely burned out. Being a homeschooling family with a home business, I cook FROM SCRATCH two other meals a day, for seven healthy appetites and adding one more meal was overload. (Yes, I’m a poor excuse for a pioneer woman.) I love doing it, I’m glad we eat healthy, real food. But some days– the cooking! the dishes! the planning! the shopping! — !!!
It helps to step back and say, yes, I could make it easier on myself– by buying convenience foods, or running to the fast food joint– but do I really want that? Is it worth it? And of course, the answer is no. This, this extra work and effort to have health and good nutrition and good taste and good food memories, is worth more to me than convenience and ease. Thanks for the reminder.
I need more of your attitude. All of my food is of the takes-no-time-to-prepare variety, and I pay plenty for it.
This hits right at home for me as I am branching out and cooking more from scratch. I’ve been making my own chicken broths these past few weeks while friends roll their eyes at me – they sell that, you know – but there is something about the way the house smells at the end of the day; the broth, superior.
So just know when the mornings are tough, along with those before and after us, there are moms out there, doing the same oatmeal dance.
(I love your writing. I do (selfishly) hope fiction is a good fit for you.)
We’ve made it a point to ease our dependency on processed foods this year. I plan on planting some veggies this summer as well. Slowly but surely we’ll go more ‘granola’ as in the end I think it’s the spiritually healthier way to be.
Ooh, what a lovely post. My morning solution is muesli and yogurt. I make the muesli and the yogurt myself. Just not first thing in the morning. My kids know where to find it and they get it for themselves. It’s not hot, but it is home made, and almost as convenient as cereal but for much less money, and still good for you.
how to make yogurt is here-http://foodthatnourishes.blogspot.com/2008/06/making-yogurt-how-to-make-yogurt-at.html
And my favorite muesli recipe is here-http://foodthatnourishes.blogspot.com/2008/06/how-to-make-muesli.html
I started adding candied orange peels to it since we a made a lot in December. Yummy.
Awesomeness!
My kids eat Cheerios every morning with toast. Now I am rethinking that.
I have been making the extra effort. Trying every meal to do it from scratch. It is totally worth it.
You are such a good mama, Beck (and a damned fine writer as well). I always learn from you.