July 23, 2006
Sunday

Ketchikan, Alaska - Kashi GOLEAN Crunch is about as good as it gets as a way to start your day with a truly nutritious breakfast cereal. For America, this simple fact could save the nation billions of dollars. How can a breakfast cereal do that? Simple, one decision at a time. If you're like me, you have been disappointed with many breakfast cereals that you've tried. This one's too sweet, or worse yet, this one's got aspartame (artificial sweetener) yuck! This one is too grainy, too mushy too? I'm not against mush; the Montana colloquialism for oatmeal is "mush". Natural oat meal is very high on my list of great breakfasts, but when it comes to a cereal that goes "crunch" and is good for America, Kashi GOLEAN Crunch is about as good as it gets. Here's why.

Americans have gained an average of 10 pounds over the past 20 years. When you account for quite a few people like me who have gained no pounds over the last 20 years, well then you can see that the remaining 70%-80% of Americans have a real growing problem. This is not just an adult problem, as American children suffer in increasing numbers from so-called adult diseases such as CHD (coronary heart disease), diabetes and cancer. Because most health experts link these disease states with obesity, logic would dictate that any lifestyle change we can make to reverse the trend of gaining weight will no doubt reverse the trend of disease.

Some trends over the past hundred years or so since heart disease, diabetes and cancer have become rampant are for breakfasts to become obsolete, skipped or drastically changed from how our great grandparents started their day. Coffee and a pastry just don't cut it nutritionally but the financial success of Starbucks and Tim Hortons is a strong indicator of western culture's desire for caffeine and sugar for breakfast. These types of choices can be at the heart of America's weight gain problem. When it comes to loosing weight, breakfast is the most important meal of the day! It literally breaks your nighttime fast. This jumpstarts your metabolism. It gets your furnace burning. The breakfasts of old were rich in natural nutrients and the fibers of multigrains.

The average American gets 11 grams of fiber per day. This number is about 1/3 of the recommended MINIMUM fiber consumption per day. The OPTIMUM fiber consumption per day is considered about 60 grams. So when I found a breakfast cereal that truly tastes great and has 32% of my daily fiber in on serving, I got serious about this cereal. GoLean Crunch comes in a 15 oz. Box and the nutrition facts panel states that there are about 8 servings per box. Yea, right! For me, there might be about four servings. If you use a breakfast bowl about the size of my dog's dish then you can calculate your fiber intake accordingly based upon your size of serving. For me the 32% fiber intake immediately goes to 64% because my servings are about twice normal. I like breakfast. Plus, I usually add dates, raisins, banana, figs & or almonds to my bowl.

One serving of Kashi Crunch gives you 3 grams of soluble fiber and 5 grams of insoluble fiber. For me, doubling these figures makes the 8 grams jump to 16 grams plus my added fruit & nut goodies and I'm up to 20 grams of God food, i.e. "good food". One has only to look at the Kashi ingredient list to see why this may be the miracle breakfast food for America: whole oats, long grain brown rice, rye, hard red winter wheat, triticale, buckwheat, barley sesame seeds, canola oil, honey, salt, cinnamon. What is really important about the ingredient list is that your grandma was familiar with every word on the list. Well except for one, "triticale", a hybrid of wheat & rye. Look how far down the list that the sweetener occurs. And even more important the sweetener is honey. Salt is a long way down the list and gives you 4% of sodium. This fact alone is a great step for many Americans who need to lower their daily salt intake.

The Bible teaches us about the Daniel fast where his men were to avoid the rich foods enjoyed by the high society of that time. Daniel's men were banned from going to Starbucks & Tim Hortons. They only ate foods of fiber rich fruits, grains and vegetables. The result was that his men had measurably more strength and energy with the Daniel diet. Literally 100's of diet studies since biblical times have scientifically proven the ancient book's truth about this diet. The Daniel diet was a lifestyle change with measurable economic and health benefits. America needs a similar lifestyle change for our economic and health benefits, so why not start with breakfast. If every single American broke their fast every morning with a 15-20 grams of fiber breakfast, heart disease would diminish, diabetes would diminish, cancer would diminish, productivity would increase, learning would increase. Americans, could all start with a good breakfast and save billions of dollars on healthcare, insurance and lost productivity. And you thought it was going to be complicated! You won't find Republicans and Democrats discussing breakfast during an election year but they will be discussing healthcare, insurance costs and education. Sometimes solutions to problems are simple.

The benefits of a great breakfast for you and for me add up to the benefits for our country. Kashi GoLean Crunch is about as good as it gets to start your day each morning. If: you are healthy, your kids are healthy, your relatives are healthy and your friends are healthy, guess what? America is healthy. It all starts with a good breakfast. Try it, enjoy it and spread the word.

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