Before we get started, I would like to extend my thanks to the editorial staff of the Light for giving me a forum to share my random musings with you, Gentle Reader. I hope you find this blog to be entertaining or, at bare minimum, occasionally coherent. Through this blog, I suspect you’ll develop a deeper understanding of who I am and what I believe in.

And one of the things I believe in most passionately is that this country has made a grave mistake by declaring war on breakfast.

Yes, you read that right. A report released this summer by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition has put forth the preposterous suggestion that breakfast may not, in fact, be the most important meal.

Horrifying, no? Why don’t these supposed clinicians just punch Count Chocula right between his pointy little ears while they’re at it?

While the AJCN report (which I didn’t actually read, but did hear about on the Internet which is essentially the same thing) focused on things like “metabolic profiles,” “blood sugar” and (I think) “riboflavin,” it didn’t address many elements that I contend elevate breakfast above its rival meals.

When I was a kid, my dad ran a small chain of stores, the kind whose fiscal years are made or broken by the Christmas season. From the day after Thanksgiving (yeah, I’m old enough to remember when that was the official start) until Jan. 2, it was rare for me to see my dad after I got home from school, but we had breakfast together every single day. That was our time and it was sacred.

My childhood Sunday mornings were spent in my grandparents’ kitchen, where I would enjoy a plate of my Maw Maw’s “world famous” scrambled eggs while quaffing Sanka (endorsed by a kindhearted man of science – Dr. Marcus Welby, M.D.) and watching Meet the Press with my Paw Paw. Golden memories, unless you’re a robotic, unsentimental scientist, I guess.

In college, one of my fraternity brothers who bore the nickname “Griz,” because he wasn’t exactly warm and cuddly in the morning, was nonetheless my jovial partner in crime as we manned the house stove flipping omelets and scrambling eggs for “stretches” for our brethren traipsing in from late night, weekend adventures. Breakfast is brotherhood, notwithstanding what some (inaptly named) egghead would have you believe.

A few weeks ago, I sat in a high school football stadium with my friend Danny, where we spent a solid half hour singing the praises of Waffle House when we should have been watching our daughters perform their cheerleading routines. Just talking about breakfast brings people together. I suppose nutritionists don’t think community bonding is important.

I am not a caveman (despite what my daughters say.) I do not reject science, but on this topic, the whitecoats are ignoring the full body of evidence. Breakfast is hugely important to humankind.  I implore them to wake up and smell the . . . well, you know.