You're Going to Ruin Your Breakfast!

In recent years I have endured gasps and intense scrutiny for drinking pop in the morning (sometimes with breakfast, usually McDonald's breakfast - I like the breakfast burritos). Thankfully, it has come to my attention that there are more people out there just like me, and the number is growing.

It's not unusual for Dee McKinsey to have three cans of Coke before she leaves the house each morning for her job as the regional director of boards and volunteerism at the American Cancer Society in Chicago.

"There is nothing better than the feel of Coke on the back of your throat in the morning," said McKinsey, a morning pop drinker since the 1970s, savoring the cold, stinging sensation that coffee drinkers just don't get.

But these days, more people are enjoying that chilled morning jolt as they increasingly turn to soft drinks instead of coffee, flaunting mom's no-pop-for-breakfast rule many had in their youth.

Consumption of soft drinks at breakfast eaten outside the home has nearly doubled in the past 15 years, while coffee consumption with breakfast outside the home has fallen nearly 25 percent, according to data compiled by New-York based consumer research firm NPD Group, which has offices in Rosemont.

The data is specific to drinks with meals and does not, for example, address the Starbucks phenomenon.

Breakfast consumers order a soft drink with their breakfast 15.1 percent of the time, compared with 7.9 percent of the time in 1990, said Harry Balzer, an NPD executive vice president who has studied American eating habits for more than 25 years. At the same time, Balzer said, coffee was being ordered 38 percent of the time, compared with 48.7 percent 15 years ago.

As I was growing up there always seemed to be this stigma about drinking pop in the morning, and therefore it was essentially given the seal of anathema (I like using words that I learn in theology classes) until noon, or later. However, now that I am in my fourth year of college I have discovered that I can drink a pop anytime I want, and I generally do: even, on occasion, with breakfast.

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