What's your favorite cereal? People can be like breakfast food

By Sam Broadbent

October 15, 2007 | Just like the cereal, the "granola lifestyle" comes in various types and flavors, crunchy granolas, honey bunches of oats, and plain flakes.

The crunchy granola is hard to come by and often confused with the honey bunches of oats when the onlooker bases their judgment only on looks. Like its cereal counterpart, the original granola is hearty, course, and sometimes a bit unpleasant at the first encounter.

You hear the soft clip clop of what could be a small pony with felt on its hooves, but instead you see it's the cork sole of a Birkenstock slapping against a foot in wool socks. The faint aroma of the Orient and Colombia's best waft around you as a few peculiarly dressed individual passes by. They have with them a steaming reusable cup filled with what is known as dirty chai, a hybrid of coffee and chai tea. While you continue walking the crowded street a person brushes your arm, immediately your arm feels as if you have just lost a battle with a burlap sack. In fact, that was just the 100% wool sweater of a local you brushed against. As you listen to how this world has been ravaged, your heart sinks with guilt, thanks to the rhetoric of a self-educated man with a reusable cup in has hand who is wearing a wool sweater, pair of wool socks and a pair of Birkenstocks. You have encountered one of a myriad of crunchy granolas.

Merica Redd, a student at Utah State University, describes granolas as left-winged people who eat tofu, avidly protect the environment, rarely shower more than once a week and usually have dreadlocks.

To the contrary is the example of Julia Hill, author and founder of the Circle of Life Foundation. In her book The Legacy of Luna, Hill explains how she sat in a 1,000-year-old redwood for 738 days to save it from loggers. Hill has no dreadlocks and actually did some modeling in her youth; she looks just as the rest of the world does maybe better. Except in a tree.

Upon closer inspection one learns the crunchy granolas can shower as often as they want and do not need the dreadlocks to establish credibility.

As USU student Mike Fullmer said it, "The crunchy granolas are the ones who know and act."

As the day begins, he showers as usual letting the stiflingly hot water and pleasant-smelling bodywash cleanse his full-beard and shoulder-length hair. For breakfast, a bowl designed to feed a small family filled with Honey Bunches of Oats is consumed at lightening speed. Lastly, with a desire to be eco friendly and without fear of sweat he hops on his long board and with a swift thurst of one leg begins the long journey to campus.

The honey bunches of oats folks are great, like their cereal counterpart, but just not the same as granola.

"The USU campus has a lot of people who look granola, but aren't," said Tori Kimitch.

Kimitch explained wearing the granola hat (looking the part) and being a true granola are very different. A person needs to be actively involved; it takes dedication to the ideas and staying informed on current issues.

"Global warming, refugees in Uganda, and too many cars on the roads are just a few problems I know of," said Kimitch.

Mike Fullmer considers himself a half granola (honey bunch of oater) because of his love of organic foods, especially when they are on sale. But unlike the crunchies Fullmer prefers to stay out of the big issues like deforestation and the allegedly failed efforts of the Kyoto Protocol and sticks to the grocery store battlefront.

When the individual begins picking and choosing if they what to fight environmental issues, showing a lack of dedication, it is a dead give that they are a honey bunches of oater.

It's mid afternoon; the sun beats down on you as you walk across campus the hundreds of foot steps mix together until all you hear is similar to a box of rocks being shaken. You look up to see a young man so engaged in his cell phone he steps on a flower, which was emitting the sweet smell of spring. He continues walking without a second glance. Next you begin to smell a mixture of fruit so strong the scent becomes a taste. Hoping to see a fruit salad, you are greeted by a young lady and her aerosol can of herbal essence hairspray dooming yet another portion of the atmosphere. Who have you come across? A pair of plain flakes.

Just plain flakes can be defined as those who don't know about or don't understand the views and actions of crunchy granolas.

When asked about plain flakers, Merica Redd said she thought most people fall into this category because they have been uninformed or ill-informed or choose to worry about other things.

"I don't think people who aren't granolas are bad, but they aren't helping the environment very much," said Redd.

Plain flakes come in all shapes and sizes the one thing they have in common is they don't notice the other cereal types around them.

The cereal aisle called earth is heavy with many flavors. Each a little different from the next, but now is the time to start discovering what can be learned from the other bags on the shelf. Whether it's granola, plain flakes, or a mixture of the two go out and expand your tastes.

MS
MS