Last week my wife came home from the grocery store with the normal staples and Peace Cereal. Everyonce and a while, she will try to bring food home that is supposedly more healthy and organic. Usually, I am childish and won’t it eat based on general principle of not wanting to support some crazy PETA-type agenda. However, one night as my stomach was growling I was looking in the pantry for some delicious cereal. I saw the normal: Chex, Honey-nut Cheerios, etc. None of them suited my fancy. Then I saw the maple pecan Peace Cereal.
At first glance the box looks like any other cereal, it has an oversized picture of a bowl with cereal and milk and a logo. Yet is definitely unique. At the bottom of the front it announced that “10% of Proceeds Donated to Peace”, whatever that means. On the right side of the box it also announces that it is 70% organic (how disappointing! only 70%, the hippies are slackin) and Vegan. This is followed by the nutritional chart and then the company information:
Peace Cereal, Golden Temple of Oregon, Inc., Eugene Oregon
Golden Temple, eh? All I can picture is some crazy guy with a ridiculously long beard wearing a long white robe and smelling terrible. But more on that in a bit.
This guy, but with a long white, Lorenzo Snow type beard.
So, despite this being above and beyond the organic stuff my wife normally buys, I decided to try it. And glad I was. It is fantastic. The oat clusters weren’t all sissy and few and far between like in Honey Bunches of Oats, but they were big and plentiful. The flakes were also of a better quality; thicker and larger than most. Kudos to the Golden Temple.
So while I was eating and being surprisingly satisfied, I read more of the box. On the back was the typical advertisements about how good the cereal was and they clarified the “profits for peace,” apparently they donate to Medicines Global who provide medical supplies from the West to impoverished countries. Then on the left side of the box is an explanation of who they are, this is great, I got a good chuckle; here are some quotes:
“We sponsor International Peace Prayer Day held every June in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico. This joyously inspirational event joins humanitarians, world leaders, musicians, and peac-loving people in celebration and prayer for peace.”
Well, I don’t know who the world leaders are, but I doubt there are any of consequence that show up. All I picture is the 60’s and some crazy cult follower people.
The leader of Golden Temple is Yogi Bhajan, his picture reminds me of an Indian version of what I envision a portrait of Mohammed would look like. Sadly, though this is modern day and while that look was the norm in the 7th century, it is not today. So basically he looks like a standard hippy cult leader who will someday lead his crew to some crazy organizad suicide as a result of there being too much war in the world.
Hippies are funny folk, they scare me and I think they are nuts. But they can make a tasty treat!
My Dry Fly 