In my old job, whenever a new member or intern joined the department, we’d have a big team lunch to welcome them and introduce ourselves. We’d go ‘round the table, offering get-to-know-you info, as one does, before throwing in an offbeat, screwball question to shake things up with some levity. Among our favorites was to have each person reveal their favorite conspiracy theory, and/or the conspiracy theory they most believed in.

My response to this ritual was always the same: Breakfast is not, in fact, the most important meal of the day, but instead a lie marketed and sold to the masses by “Big Breakfast.” Set aside your personal feelings, I’d urge — breakfast foods are my favorite cuisine type, for the record — and consider that nearly everyone first heard this trope from commercials peddling breakfast foods; from some pantsless, anthropomorphic animal peddling breakfast foods; or from parents, teachers, or other susceptible consumers who’d heard it from one of those and then passed it along as fact.