I know this is a tough one to swallow, especially if you are one of the people who have a bowl of cereal with some kind of milk every morning. You do want to start your day with a healthy bang, though, right?
I have discovered that cereals are produced by a process called extrusion. (Grape Nuts are not, neither are granolas) The grains and other ingredients are mixed together and taken through a complex series of processing that is called extrusion. The ingredients are heated to very high temperatures and popped out of the equipment after being subjected to 1500 pounds of pressure per square inch. That's where those flakes, chex, o's, stars, and the like come from.
Tastes good, though. Well, yes, and we're not even going to have the discussion about all the sugar in cereal. This is strictly about the extrusion process--
Somehow, the cereal companies convinced the USDA that this process was as healthy as eating the raw ingredients. There is a study, tucked away and unpublished, of course, that tells the story of what happens to animals fed extruded grains versus those fed only water and sugar, fed whole wheat kernels, or water and chemical nutrients. The animals on extruded grains died before those fed the other selections. Paul Stitt describes this in his book, "Beating the Food Giants." Mr. Stitt is a Big Food insider--his book tells of his experiences working for the good giants. He goes into more detail than I have here. The analysis is that there is something inherently toxic about the resultant food from this process--that the process itself turns a healthy grain into one that is poisonous. High heat and pressure denature the delicate proteins found in grains and this is what is toxic.
What I have come to know is that human bodies need living food in order to thrive. Anything processed becomes dead and no longer nourishes the body. Added vitamins and minerals do not assimilate like they do when they come from your live food.
Make another choice for breakfast. Eat eggs, full-fat yogurt, oatmeal (steel-cut and soaked overnight), home-made muffins from soaked flour or a bowl of soup! Eat hearty--the first meal of the day is important. And don't forget to drink a couple of glasses of water to make sure that you are adequately hydrated.
