as she replaced beloved childhood cereals with brownish-gray extrusions of bran , as she banned butter and bacon and issued ukases on safflower margarine and red and white-dyed soybean ersatz bacon strips , as she added prodigious amounts of such carotene-rich foods as carrots and cantaloupe and squash , and cancer-killing cruciferous vegetables such as mustard greens , kale and broccoli , and as she restricted red meat to such an extent that it seemed to her family that cattle must be an endangered species , dilly herself , with her children safely away at school , smashed chunks of baking chocolate into bite size pieces for her lunch .