Stray Thoughts: The Principles We Live By, or a Tale of Cereal and Chocolate

Cereal and ChocolateNo, this is not a political, religious, or other rant. It’s an exploration of my choices as they are inspired by various principles, and a call for any that you might want to share.

As I poured my cereal this morning, I thought about what my cereal choices said about me and thought you might find it amusing. Yes, cereal. One of the most complicated decisions in the world, and one that occurs first thing in the morning when you’re half-awake yet can affect you for at least half the day…until lunch. Is it sugar cereal this morning, hot or cold, granola, corn, or a myriad of other choices, most of which are available to me at any one time.

But those were not the driving forces behind my choice this morning. No, that honor went to the “tail end” problem. I was raised on the principle of “waste not, want not,” but I think I have taken it a bit to the extreme. Now I’m not perfect, especially where perishables are concerned, because “out of sight, out of mind” is another catch phrase that afflicts me, but with non-perishables, or those with long usability time frames, I’m pretty good.

Today, I had not one, but two cereals with only dregs left in the box, a mix between sugar (Lucky Charms) and not (Crispix). They didn’t sound like a horrible combination, but each required a very different sort of maneuvering. At the bottom of the Lucky Charms box, you have that sugar powder that turns everything too sweet (one of the things I like about it is the contrast between the non-sweet bits and the marshmallows). At the bottom of Crispix you have all the tiny broken off bits that will become bloated in the milk practically before your first bite.

What this means is the pouring process becomes a play in physics as I try to get the heavier, substantial bits going at a higher velocity than the little bits whether powder or fragments, which are then trapped in the bag by a rapid lift. I can get most of them out that way, but sometimes I have to pluck the last few pieces from amid the dust with my fingers.

A lot of work to salvage everything edible.

With another cereal, I’ve taken to preserving the bits in a plastic container for later use as ice cream topping. These are cinnamon wheat squares that I’ve finally crossed off my buy list not because they aren’t a good mix of healthy and delicious but because they have a high percentage of fragmentation, and I just don’t remember to put the bits on my ice cream often enough, especially considering how infrequently I have ice cream.

A counter example is chocolate.

I like my chocolate dark and bloomed.

I get new chocolate and open the package so it will go stale sooner rather than later. The oils evaporate, leaving something crisper behind. This means I have a lot of chocolate waiting to become edible, something that seems bizarre to those who buy a bar and consume it in the same day. Again, I don’t waste it, but to many who would not consume chocolate once it’s bloomed, I appear to be the great chocolate offender.

While this might seem a bit of over-thinking, and honestly, the thought process is largely automatic at this point, principle is a key element of the book I’m editing. I hope that you will find the driving principles behind it thought provoking as well, but I’m not ready to spill the beans…or is it cereal…on that title, so I chose a principle you might have addressed in one way or another in your own life.

There you have it: a couple of my odd choices as related to the “waste not, want not” principle. What about you? What odd lengths do you go to for this principle, or is there another one that holds sway in your life?

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2 Responses to Stray Thoughts: The Principles We Live By, or a Tale of Cereal and Chocolate

  1. Jean says:

    *Makes mental note to mail all stale chocolate to Margaret. (Not that I ever have any of that!)*

    I’ve been learning to eat mindfully this year, and the surprising thing to me was there were some cereals I was eating that I didn’t really enjoy. The same is true for a very few other menu items.

    And, horror of horrors, I’ve been learning I do not have to finish everything on my plate for any variety of reasons. I’m also trying to learn when I’m really hungry as opposed to, say, being just tired and needing to go to bed. It’s an enlightening process.

    • Margaret McGaffey Fisk says:

      :). Only if it’s dark or semi-sweet. Milk doesn’t understand the bloom.

      Like the chocolate, I’m an oddball when it comes to eating. I need to remember to eat, and my stomach is so shrunken that knowing when to stop is not an issue. It’s a good thing I believe in leftovers or I’d be in constant conflict with myself.

      I think we really need to listen to ourselves more on those aspects though. I have junk cereals I use as treats, but too much of them and they start to be cloying. My preferences are for hearty granolas, but so many of them are sweetened to meet the US pallet that I give in to other stuff when I don’t have time to make my own.

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