At the opening of South Pacific, the children sing:

Dites-moi
Pourquoi
La vie est belle?

You probably don’t need a translator to tell you what that means:

Tell me
Why
Is life beautiful?

Well, I have a “Tell Me Why?” question, and it has nothing to do with life.

For the past nearly 40 years I’ve been eating practically the same basic thing for breakfast, with a just a few variations here and there. It’s my own concoction of a müslix cereal. It’s gone through a few very slightly different formulations over the years, but the current mix is simply rolled oats, sunflower seeds, roasted peanuts, and walnut pieces. The rolled oats, sunflower seeds, and peanuts have been mainstays from the beginning, but I’ve sometimes had raisins or wheat germ or oat bran or one or two other ingredients.

From time to time I mix things up and have pancakes or French toast or eggs or something, but at least 95% of the time my main breakfast has been my own cereal concoction. Plus, of course, a half cup of whole milk plain yogurt that I started eating a few years back. 

I add fruit, usually a chopped banana, and depending on my mood and availability, blueberries or strawberries. Plus milk and a sweetener: either Stevia or brown sugar or maple syrup.

And here’s the thing. I never get tired of it.

Unlike my other meals where if I make something and warm it up for left overs, I generally get sick of it after two or three days.

Or sometimes I’ll have a favorite meal that I prepare nearly every week, until one day I decide I don’t ever want to taste it ever again, and then I go years without making it.

Why is it that some foods I can only tolerate for a very limited time, but my breakfast cereal I can eat over and over and over again and never get tired of it?

Tell me why?