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Solving Two Dinner Table Debates or Myth-Busting

Each family has their big debates. In our family we keep coming back to two of the most complex, intriguing, and important topics of all time.  They have combined to complete an elaborate tapestry of argumentation that, as far as we know, is still hovering over Lake Michigan.

The debates center on proving the veracity of two theories:

  1. Is a dog’s mouth is cleaner than a human’s?
  2. Is bread crust good for you?

I know that by bringing these topics up there is the potential to make this the most controversial blog post in the history of this site. However, this is no longer a matter of debate. We have a solution. I’m here to set the record straight.

Is Dog’s Mouth Cleaner than a Humans?

I can remember my Nana telling me that it was OK to share my apple with a dog. “His mouth is cleaner than yours!” She would say. I often wondered if she was using this as a word picture to show she caught me saying a couple of bad words. But upon further review, she in fact did believe that my dog’s mouth was more sanitary than my own. This remains tough to believe. And Nana remains true to her convictions here.

Our high school son recently conducted an experiment in his biology class. He tested the saliva of a dog, a cat and a human. The end result? The human mouth came in third. It looked like a bee-hive, says my son. The dog comes in second and the cat first.

So there you have. The perennial debate is solved. I’m still not sharing my apple with a dog.

Is the Bread’s Crust Good for you?
Bread Crust
This has been an argument between parents and their children since the beginning of sandwiches. All the way from the deep south (my wife’s mom told her all sorts of myths that bread crust would do for her–like make her more womanly in order to manipulate her into eating that dry, crusty stuff) to the Northeast, where my mom told me that bread crust would give me muscles like Popeye. Parents everywhere have tried to brainwash their children into believing that the crust is good for you.

Now I’m wearing the parental shoes, trying to get my kids to eating that flaky, tasteless stuff surrounding the goodness that resides in the middle. Most children think of the crust, from sandwiches to cinnamon toast, like the rind on the orange. It’s garbage on their plate.

I’ve learned that you don’t have to teach children to dislike this scabby stuff on the outside of their bread. They know it instinctively. For example my 20month old that chants “Breakfast, breakfast!” when I get her out of the crib in the morning, gets plumped down in her chair and served her favorite breakfast: warm toast, smothered with coconut oil, sprinkled with cinnamon, topped with sugar. But, what is her fist order of business? She tears off the crust. It is almost as instinctive as saying, “Umm!”

As a parent (of 5 children that despise crust and have heaps of bread droppings after a bread-ish meal) I must do the fatherly thing. I have to do the right thing. I insist that they eat the crust.

Then the excuses come:

“Oh I’m so full.”

“Crust makes my mouth itchy.”

“But it’s burnt today.”

Deep down, I know it’s nasty. The internal struggle begins again. The kids are wasting food.

Then it happened. My wife (who also litters her plate with crust) dared to do the one thing no mother should ever venture to do. She questioned the sacred parental oracles.

She baldly said, “I don’t think crust is good for you. I think my mom lied to me and your mom lied to you too.”

This was a game changer. Mom just became a populist. She went to bat for the underdogs in the eternal breakfast table battle between kids and parents.

Google was the only thing that could save us now.

The answer was conclusive. Bread crust is the healthiest part of the bread.

Apparently, when bread bakes in the oven, complex chemical reactions occur that create cancer-fighting molecules.  The heat forces carbohydrates in the bread to combine with amino acids of the proteins, resulting in the browning of the surface and a crust rich in antioxidants.

Resisting the urge to spike my iPad like an NFL receiver after a game winning touchdown, I just sat and let it sink in.

Then my wife weighed in:

“Eat every single bite of your crust right now.”

The perennial debate is satisfied. Crust is good for you. Now the kids are eating it…all.

The fabricated crust stories will be replaced with sound research. Hopefully the kids will pass down the tradition to their kids too, because, crust is good for you.

Conclusion

There you have it, two big debates solved. Hopefully this serves to inform your dinner table, and perhaps make it healthier. It’s a fun discussion on our end. Now that we have nothing to debate, we’ll take any suggestions.

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