I am no Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but standing in the cereal aisle of a local grocery store, I began to think about some of the things he is trying to change in the daily eating habits of Americans. Besides taking the food dyes out of our food, he also is pushing for less sugar in our food choices.

You see, as someone who has to keep an eye on my daily carbohydrates count, I have been paying closer attention to how much sugar is in some of my favorite foods. As a product of the baby boomer generations, I grew up on mostly home-cooked meals — not so much fast food.

We ate things such as meat loaf, spaghetti, oven-baked chicken legs, stew and chicken pot pie. There was always a vegetable or fruit selection on the table along with white bread and butter. Fast foods meant an occasional order of a dozen cheeseburgers and fries from the local Burger Chef for our large clan.

Then breakfast through the week was usually a quick bowl of cereal. Let’s talk about that cereal. My mother was a true believer in Cream of Wheat and oatmeal, but let’s face it, it was much easier and convenient to pour a bowl of cold cereal and add milk.

Many of those cereals included plenty of sugar. Among the meal time favorites were Captain Crunch, Corn Pops, Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops, Coco Krispies and so on. You get the picture. Sugar was plentiful.

Mixed in with all those sweet selections were Cheerios, Rice Krispies, Corn Flakes and Raisin Bran. You might think that those were better dietary choices and, compared to their sweet counterparts, they were and are.

Regular old Cheerios remain among my favorites. This was one of the first pick-up foods that the babies were able to eat on their own. My dad would complain when he went to spoon sugar into his morning coffee because the sugar bowl often contained a few misplaced Cheerios.

The makers of Cheerios didn’t have to but I guess they felt the need to join the sugar parade and began adding sweeter versions of the classic round O’s of oats. Now you can purchase chocolate coated and honey nut sweetened Cheerios. However, that means more reading of the back of the cereal boxes to determine the carb load.

I couldn’t help but chuckle when I was in church this past weekend and noticed a few Cheerios on the floor under the pew in front of me. I think Mr. Kennedy has his work cut out for him in more ways than one.

Heather Ziegler can be reached via email at hziegler@theintellogencer.net.