Duh! It's the Cereal!

So by now most of you have probably heard about the recent study asserting that a mother's diet at the time of conception may influence the gender of her baby. A recent New York Times article on the study discusses the theory that although X and Y sperm ultimately determine gender, higher food/calorie intake and higher glucose levels during conception makes "conditions" more hospitable for for male embryos. Skipping meals results in lower glucose levels, which makes it difficult for male embryos to survive. The study makes the leap that women who eat breakfast and have diets high in potassium, calcium, and vitamins C, E, and B12 tend to produce sons. Further, there was a strong correlation between eating breakfast cereal and producing sons!

While it will be interesting to see if the theory holds up to further study, it certainly sheds light on my tendency to produce male offspring. While my caveman husband has been walking around pounding his chest about producing a flock of sons, I have long been consuming mass quantities of two of my favorite foods - cereal and bananas. Coincidence? Maybe not!

My love affair with cereal started in college and has lasted all the way to present day, although it has subsided somewhat. There was a time in my single days when my grocery cart literally contained a gallon of milk, a bunch of bananas, 3 boxes of cereal, 10 different kinds of beans, and a bag of rice. Thankfully, my palate has matured a little (I've moved from Lucky Charms to Kashi), but cereal is still high on the list. The boys must have inherited a taste for the stuff in utero because it's high on their list too, as well as their father's. I kid you not when I say that a fourth of our weekly grocery bill is due to the 5 boxes of cereal and 3 gallons of milk we consume each week.

With the news of our third boy, almost everyone asks us if we plan to "go for the girl" and have a fourth. Considering the fact that I have not missed a meal since the day I was born and at least 2/3 of those meals have been cereal, we definitely don't plan on giving this theory a test run. Which is just fine with me. We seem to be pretty good at this boy thing.