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By Root 633 0

never been wackier than they are today (wheat-grass juice? Atkins?), but a few minutes spent reading about the diet gurus of 150 years ago suggest we’ve always been crazy on the subject of food. Nineteenth-century health food nuts were particularly fixated on breakfast. Back then, many Americans began the day with foods we now eat for dinner—meat, potatoes, biscuits, pie. But John Harvey Kellogg, the eccentric vegetarian director of a Michigan sanatorium, strongly disapproved. As obsessed with discouraging sexual activity (“We have not the slightest hesitation in pronouncing flirtation as pernicious in the extreme”) as he was with administering yogurt enemas, Kellogg began touting the virtues of high-fiber cereals, including the precursor to the cornflake. His younger brother, Will, eventually took John Harvey’s ideas to market and built the company we now love and revile. Meanwhile, one of Kellogg’s patients, Charles Post, launched a cereal company of his own, marketing Grape-Nuts and a caffeine-free grain beverage called Postum. They had the best of intentions, those Victorian dieticians, and it’s a sad irony that they are the reason so many of us wake up today to Cocoa Pebbles and Frosted Flakes.

OATMEAL

The difference between the now-ubiquitous presweetened instant oatmeal from a brown paper envelope and old-fashioned rolled oats cooked on the stove (or in a microwave) is like the difference between Taster’s Choice and freshly ground Ethiopian Yirgacheffe brewed in a French press pot. Why have we raised the bar for coffee in the last thirty years and lowered it for oatmeal? Cooked oats are a noble food, firm and starchy and ribsticking. A bowl of Quaker instant oatmeal—bits of oat product swimming in a thin, sickly sweet brown fluid—is not.

Do I allow instant oatmeal in the house? Sure. And I’m not too happy about it. But my children like to make it for themselves for breakfast and I can’t quite muster the indignation to cut them off. Sugar Pops for breakfast are one thing; instant oatmeal is something else.

Make it or buy it? Unless you’re camping, or unless you are a kid, make oatmeal from real rolled oats.

Hassle: It takes about 5 minutes longer to make old-fashioned oats than to hydrate a pouch.

Cost comparison: Old-fashioned homemade oats cost about $0.23 per ⅔ cup serving when you factor in a tablespoon of brown sugar. Quaker Instant: $0.68.

GRANOLA

How funny that granola acquired a reputation as a health food. True, granola is full of nuts and seeds and oats and fiber, and Honey Smacks are full of corn syrup. But if America’s number one health problem is obesity, based on the calorie counts, aren’t we better off with a bowl of Honey Smacks? Of course, we are probably better off with a spoonful of granola than a bowl of Honey Smacks, but no one ever eats a spoonful of granola. Not when it’s as good as this granola.

The beauty of homemade granola is that you can customize. I personally don’t like fruit in granola, but you can add raisins or dried papaya—or chocolate chips. If you don’t like maple syrup (or think it’s too expensive—it’s the single costliest ingredient in this recipe), you can substitute honey. Don’t care for walnuts? Use peanuts, hazelnuts, or cashews. Add cinnamon. Add orange zest. Omit coconut. Et cetera. Fun.

Make it or buy it? Make it.

Hassle: One bowl, one pan, mix, bake

Cost comparison: This granola costs about $1.10 per cup to make. Quaker 100% Natural: $0.60 per cup. Bear Naked: $2.21 per cup. Fiber Power Triple Berry: $2.56 per cup.

3 cups rolled oats

1 cup almonds, slivered or roughly chopped

½ cup chopped pecans

¼ cup wheat germ

⅓ cup maple syrup

¾ cup sweetened flaked or shredded coconut

⅓ cup light brown sugar, packed

¼ cup melted butter

¾ teaspoon kosher salt

1. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F.

2. Mix all the ingredients and spread on a cookie sheet.

3. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. No need to stir while it’s baking. You’ll know the granola is done because it will be crunchy and