The C Words

For me there's never been any ambiguity about what is acceptable for breakfast. Cereal, muffins or fruit: yes. Cakes, cookies, or raw sugar: no. However, it is not uncommon for me to see these things on the breakfast table here in France. In fact, while I was in the south, there wasn't even a breakfast table involved sometimes. "Baptiste! Do you want a strawberry cake or cake bread (brioche) with jam?" And then I'd bring it over to him after he'd finished a bottle of milk with 2 giant ladle fulls of Nesquick. This is what I was advised by the parents to offer for breakfast and this is what granny had the cupboards stocked with. For snack, a sampling of the cookie/cake aisle was offered, although the twins are required to begin snack with applesauce, then move on to chocolate cookies, raspberry candy and cakes shaped like bears. When I was a kid, my snacks were always fruit. On a good day, fruit with peanut butter: apples or celery with pb and raisins. If my mom had offered me cakes and cookies for snack, I probably would have avoided it. I'd be suspicious they'd be soaked in some kind of household cleaner or I'd have to mow the lawn for the next 2 years in return. I'm baffled. Why are American kids so fat yet I can clearly see the ribs of any random sampling of French kids?