Avoiding UPFs at breakfast

[Ayechinnyreckon]

After breakfast we eat virtually no UPFs but the kids breakfast is a huge issue.

They wake early and are hungry. They're 9&6 so can be trusted to go downstairs, get themselves some cereal and occupy themselves in the morning until we get up.

They eat cereal and pastries mainly until we get up and make a more substantial breakfast if they want it) 90mins - 2 hours later.

AIBU to want quick and easy breakfast that the DC can get themselves? So I don't have to get up at 5.30!

Oh my god. UPF is pure bullshit.

There's some evidence about food cooked at very high temperatures- but you can get muesli if this worries you.

UPF is wellness grifting bullshit tweaked to hit all the middle class prejudice hot buttons. Sliced bread from Aldi: Poison. Baguette from your local artisan sourdough place with a queue of bearded blokes: totally fine.

Come on people.

Some Greek yoghurts are UPF free. There is a UPF free instagram account that is a handy guide for some ideas.

Why do you buy them if you don’t want them to eat them? At that age they are not doing their own shopping.

Ds really loves overnight oats with berries etc in them. I also make egg muffins which are easy done in a batch and keep for about a week in a sealed container in the fridge. You can make them up with whatever meat or veggies your little ones like.

Prepared pots of fruit salad? Boiled eggs and spinach leaves? Chia seed pudding and fruit?

What time do they go to school?

I would cook up egg muffins, cheese, eggs, bacon, or whatever and have those in the fridge, can they warm things in the microwave, nothing worse than cold food first thing

Get a toaster, is there a problem with this?

Overnight oats are basically porridge, can you put them in a lunch bag with a frozen pack so that its next to the bed, then they can eat it in bed if thats preferable, although it would be cold (personally I would want it warmed up)

Egg muffins - chop some ham, mushrooms, peppers, bit of grated cheese, add to whisked eggs and pour into muffin tin then bake.

Rice Crispies, weetabix and Bear cereal (alpha bites as previously mentioned) are all UPF free

Because they need a breakfast they can get themselves, and cereal or pastries was a good option for them. I'm looking for alternatives. Then I'll stop buying them.

Look up breakfast casseroles or frittatas or egg muffins.
All different names for eggs mixed with stuff (vegetables, meat, cheese) and baked in a tray until set. Like a pastry free quiche. Can be left cut into squares and eaten from the fridge or warmed in the oven.
Fresh fruit salad.
And if they eat both the above you shouldn't need to be cooking a second breakfast when they get up!

I answered OP but I agree with this totally.

Never heard so much obsession over perfectly ok food.

Maybe get up and feed them a breakfast?

Not sure why you would spend an extra 2 hours in bed and leave a 6 year old to sort their own breakfast out tbh.

Millions of spanish, italian and french people survive on pastries and bread for breakfast, you dont see them frothing about UPFs (and yes before anyone states the obvious, they have lower levels of UPFs generally, but a pastry from the supermarket is a pastry from the supermarket)

How shredded wheat is worse for your kids than pancakes or toast, or ham (which has a decent evidence base for being linked to cancer) apart from on the evidence-less UPF middle class insane scale is completely beyond

If you aren't worried about their weight or teeth then a bit of cereal or a pastry isn't going to do much harm in the context of a mostly healthy diet.

If they are main lining coco pops with a side of sugar puffs followed by a choc chip muffin....there's probably some better choices to be made.

Home-made granola?

Shredded wheat, ready brek, Weetabix is okay I think? We struggle with breakfasts as we can't eat oats, dairy or eggs.

Egg or avocado on toast

There's no law that breakfast has to be breakfast foods. I personally hate cereal, eggs, and milk! So I usually eat leftover dinner for breakfast. Or bread/cheese/tomatoes.

They can't do those themselves.

They go to school at 8.45.

Bread with butter and cheese? Healthier cereal and milk? Granola with yogurt?

These are fine. And some UPF are also fine.

Totally agree

I have ready brek and fruit every day!

Leave them a lunchbox with a sandwich: cream cheese, peanut butter or whatever.
Make little crustless quiches or breakfast muffins (savoury) , cheese scones, scotch pancakes, whatever you can leave in their ‘breakfast picnic box’.
With a banana, and satsuma or berries or grapes.