mmmmmmmmmmmm

It started when Chip and I had a conversation about “good” food to eat. I’ve been trying really hard, people. I eat the magic salad every day. I consume yogurt and fruit and veggies on a regular basis. I haven’t had ice cream in 3 weeks (the occasional creamsicle doesn’t count). As many of you who have been through this pregnancy thing can attest, however, this time is so rife with the unknowing stomach – the inability to decide what sounds good, coupled with the crushing reality that if you consume one bite of the wrong food, you will be crumpled over the toilet bowl before your husband can say “Would you like cheese with that?” So yes, at times I’ve made some questionable food choices. When nothing in the world sounds the least bit palatable other than McDonald’s Chicken Nuggets – you go with the Chicken Nuggets, throwing deep fried sensibility to the wind. When the mere thought of a bowl of soup sends you running upstairs, hand clasped tightly over your mouth – you don’t eat the soup. At the same time, however, I concede that he has a point – and my diet could use something more. After some discussion – the golden mean was reached and we decided that that something more was FIBER.

Which lead to last night’s grocery store trip. I had already picked up some fruit, yogurt, and bread – and I was now rounding ye olde cereal aisle for the allusive FIBER cereal.

I swear, the person who bakes up an edible-looking fiber cereal will be a bajillionaire. Because the choices? Not so good. On one hand you have the family of high fiber cereals that look far too much like the dry food we feed the cats. We aren’t even talking about fun little semi-colorful star shapes, people. This stuff looks like the scientifically formulated, mottled-brown squares that are prescribed to the cat with intestinal distress – the kind that come in the plain white bag, nary a smiling cat image to be found, large block script declaring the contents of the package to be NUTRITIONALLY SOUND DIRT SQUARES THAT YOUR CAT WILL NEVER EAT, NOT IN A MILLION YEARS, NOT COVERED WITH GRAVY, NOT DIPPED IN CHICKEN FAT, NO SIREE – NEVER NEVER NEVER, AMEN. On the other hand, we have the fiber cereal family that has taken a different tactic, away from the cat food look-alike – and over to the small rodent food look-alike. I’m talking about those pellet things. There’s a whole range of fiber cereal that looks like something I’d feed a gerbil. Or a small rabbit. At this point, let me offer you a helpful suggestion: say that if you’re in the grocery store aisle, and the mere thought of how a particular brand of cereal will look when soaking in milk sends your gag reflex into overtime, don’t buy the cereal. It’s not going to get any better. Our third family of fiber cereal brings us to the hay-bale look-alike. Another wide range in this group. We’ve even got the amalgam of alfalfa pellets baked into the shape of the hay bale. Those things make me sneeze, just thinking about their fibrous fibers being chewed into oblivion. I might as well head to the trees in our backyard and scoop up a generous portion of bark and twigs and toss that into a cereal bowl. And our last family of fiber cereal brings us to the odd balls. It’s hard to imagine, I know, that there are fiber cereals out there that simply don’t fit in – especially when you consider that the fiber cereals really are the vitamin-reeking, thick-glasses wearing, high-water pants sporting outcasts of the cereal aisle. Yes, even in this subgroup there are those that don’t fit – take the oh so healthy Kashi cereal with extra fiber that has items floating in the picture that look suspiciously like, uh, puffy white GRUBS. (Not kidding – I stared, open-mouthed, at that box for a while, trying to figure out what those white buggers were – I finally came up with puffed rice, or something, but once again when I imagined those little gems floating in a bowl of milk, I had to take a very large step AWAY from the Kashi.

I couldn’t bring myself to buy any of my options. My stomach is sensitive enough these days, without trying to gag down a hearty helping of cat crunchies, alfalfa pellets, twigs, bark, hay bales, and a sprinkling of puffy white vermin. I will be muddling through with Cheerios.