to make my dc eat healthy cereals for breakfast????

[icancount]

Apparently EVERYONE else has chocolate type breakfast cereals.

Mine have to have things like shreddies/weetabix/cornflakes/rice crisps etc etc. They are allowed honey on it.
During school holidays they choose their own cereals (frosties, coco pops type stuff)
Am I a horrible mother?

Is there such thing as a healthy cereal?

Oh and the people saying "kids need sugar" my kids get sugar, they get junk a couple of times a week, but it is

1. clearly junk and not good for you and recognised as such. I prefer for my kids to be completely clear on that. I hate "fruit rollups" etc that are boiled sugar for that reason.

2. they get plenty of sugar in the dried apricots, raisins, apple, bananas, watermelon etc that they eat all the time. One of my DS eats his own weight in pineapple it seems. That has a lot of sugar in it. It also has a lot of other things he needs.

3. it is hardly calorie counting if they can eat until they are full and have a huge range of things to eat. They can have eggs and toast for breakfast if they prefer (and we buy our bread by the amount of fibre and sugar too because american bread is so sweet ugh) and that is not low calorie.

My kids would rather have sweeties/ice cream once in a while than sweet cereal too.

I don't buy sugary cereal - not because I'm uber strict; I'm prefectly content for DC to eat a croissant or french toast, but because I always wanted them to be able to eat cereal without anyhting sweet added at all iyswim.

I think once you get a taste for sweet cereals you can't manage them any other way. Or is that just me?

I shop around and have found that a lot of the supermarets own brands have much less salt/sugar. Example tesco own type weetabix only have 1.7g of sugar which is a lot less than the real weetabix. We also have boiled eggs or wholemeal toast and peanut butter.

Croissants? Thought they were either full of butter and sugar or full of animal fat (if from southern europe).

What's french toast - is it that dry sort of bread/bicuit?

well I don't think cereal is a particularly healthy choice anyway

giveit French toast is eggy bread! Usually served with syrup over the top...so not a healthy breakfast even if it has some fruit & yoghurt on the side...

I agree with welli - own brand cereals have a lot less sugar in them.

Is eggy bread that thing where you dip the bread in whisked egg and then fry? If so, I love it!!!!! But can't tolerate the flour in the bread these days sadly. So it's bloody eggy bread - bloody wonderful stuff! Better than cereal.Gonna try ds on it tomorrow. Genius - thank you!

I shop around and have found that a lot of the supermarets own brands have much less salt/sugar. Example tesco own type weetabix only have 1.7g of sugar which is a lot less than the real weetabix. We also have boiled eggs or wholemeal toast and peanut butter.

YABU! Breakfast cereal is full of salt, sugar and additives. It's all processed crap!
I personally think protein makes a much better breakfast.

My kids have cereal very occasionally but I don't think its really a healthy choice.
My children will usually have egg on toast (their favourite) or porridge.

I'm really shocked when I read some of the ingredients and nutritional content of some of the cereals that the kids pester me to buy. I can't bear to purchase them when I see ingredients like weird fats and sugars.
I'm such a horrible mother too.

My dcs were deprived too. Coco-pops (and Variety packs) were a holiday treat only since I refused to accept the idea the chocolate had any place in cereals. Porridge, grapenuts, weetabix and muesli were offered and accepted! Interestingly, ds2 won't serve chocolate breakfast cereals to his dd either.

YANBU, OP.
My DS is only allowed things such as Frosties or Coco Pops if we are actually away on holiday during the holidays. He still thinks those variety packs are a treat, aged 9! I don't mind him adding a teaspoon of sugar to his Weetabix or Branflakes though.

To those who don't give their dc sugar....what do you think bread contains?

Sugar.

And salt.

And even fruit has a lot of sugar in it. It may be 'natural' but still sugar.

Unless your child is having frosties and the like every day, there's nothing wrong with many breakfast cereals especially if they contain whole grain (which, incidentally, gram for gram is a better cancer preventer than fruit and veg).

My dc has weetabix, porridge and occasionally rice kris pies, shredded wheat all with fruit. Tried coco pops on holiday as friends Ds had them and decided didn't like them as too sweet. I was :) as didn't want to have requests for them anyway.

there's a difference between refined sugars and grains, and natural whole sugars and grains

What a virtuous bunch.
I bet they're all little children.
Wait until you have teenagers. Ha.

Dancegirl - I know exactly how much sugar goes in my bread and I know exactly how much salt goes in my bread. Which is less than one gram of each in a loaf of bread.

Fruit has sugar but it also has a large amount of fibre, we eat on average 15 grams of fibre per day whereas we should be eating nearer 200 grams of fibre per day so eating fruit and vegetables is really really good for you along with whole grains. Put whole grains and fruit and vegetables together and you will reduce cancer risks even further - don't eat one over the other, we need both

Mine get a choice of porridge or muesli, they are used to it. Cereal is pap.

SS mine are both teenagers - though at both ends of the spectrum and one has now left home. DD1 doesn't touch cereal apart from porridge and has things like scrambled eggs or tomatoes on whole wheat bread, kippers ( she works in a gastro pub and gets breakfast on duty) dd2 knows she can't preform well if she doesn't have a good decent breakfast, cornflakes and the like just don't allow a 2 hour swim session so her choice to swim and her choice to eat a decent amount of good foods otherwise she fails, and I have watched her struggle. Certainly in our case dd2 learnt quickly food and quality was important

Mine have the mini shredded wheat but the chocolate ones. I find them a happy compromise - relatively low in sugar compared to Cocopops but with lots of fibre etc. I don't think they are marketed at children though, judging by the box.

Mine can have their pick in the holidays though.

I am more bothered that they eat something than anything else.

I have a teen and preteen, they like sugary stuff but they also like other stuff. The trick is to find something they really like that is good for them and encourage a substitution. One of mine is not pro-veggies, but I found he LOVES sautéed veggies and will fight his brother for sautéed kale and red cabbage (yay!!)

Fruit has sugar, some has a lot of sugar, but it also has lots of other stuff that we need. Table sugar has nothing we need except calories and we can get that elsewhere.

ivykaty44 where do you get the idea that adults let alone children should be getting 200g of fibre per day? I don't know of a single organisation that recommends more than 40g for an adult male and obviously less for children and others on lower calorie.

an endocrinology lecture