crunchy vs. mushy

breakfast cereal has been an infrequent staple in my eating habits. childhood found me choosing whichever cereal had "the best" gimmick inside of the box. i still cringe at the thought of the way captain crunch scars the roof of your mouth with its jagged exoskeleton. lucky charms, sans the "marshmallow" shapes, tasted like recycled cardboard sprinkled with sugar. were these trinkets worth this pain? i honestly cannot recall one good find that came cello-wrapped from within one of these boxes.

once i got to college and really started paying for my own food, i quickly realized that cereal was damn expensive! 3 bucks for a box that each bowl would only satisfy your hunger for about 45 minutes. hell no!

there was one relapse in about 1998-99 when i really got into organics and started eating nature's path cereal crafted by our neighbors to the north. that was amidst my recycling business, and i would eat it first thing in the a.m. for some energy that would wane by the time i got back from my first round of pickups.

i have employed cereal for a similar means off and on for the past year or so. before my morning run or bike, i gobble down a bowl of cereal for a kick of energy. the debate of crunchy vs. soggy/mushy occurred to me this a.m. as i opened a box of what proves to be the world's most mushy cereal when saturated with soymilk, wheatabix (interestingly enough, also imported from canada). wheatabix comes in two sleeves of biscuit wafers within the box, hence some assembly required. you modestly crush up the biscuits in your bowl and add the liquid. upon contact, a wheaty sweety mortar forms. it sticks to your insides for roughly an hour and a half or so. at which time, i have just arrived to work, and i put together a bowl of hot cereal for consumption.

for the opposite end of the mushy spectrum, i opt for some bulk bin granola from the natural foods store. this gives me the crunch i seek, yet leaves the roof of my mouth uncaptaincrunchified.