Cheerios...

[littlelamb]

As my quest for the perfect breakfast cereal goes on, we have stumbled upon cheerios, and they have gone down very well indeed. The packaging, from what I can see, makes them out to be a healthy choice. Given my past problems, I have resolved to never check packets too closely because I could get obsessed again, so I need to know just how bad Cheerios really are? Is it ok to give them to a 15 month old almost every morning? Obviously, we try different things, but dd really seems to like these, and I'm sharing them too, but are they ok as far as salt, sugar and the usual baddies are concerned? Sorry to ask such a stupid question, but I throw boxes out before I get chance to read them, so any quick opinions would be apreciated,
Thanks,
Littlelamb x

But where are the Sainsbury's and other supermarket own brand cereal's made? They don't all have their own factories. Own brand products are made in Brand name factories, just with slightly different ingredients. So, they are quite probably being made in the Nestle factory anyway, and profiting Nestle.

cheerios have trans fat (hydrogenated veg oil) in which is why they're off the menu in our house
(DH says I'm too sanctimonious!)

Why not try a brand of cereal called NAtures Path? You can get it at most health food stores. They do a range of different shapes and my kids like it. It is much much lower in sugar and higher in good grains like spelt.

I'm sure shreddies are one of the better cereals for kids. That and wheetabix.

Ok, its next morning and I'm still fuming over Miriam Stoppard. I have a book by her about weaning and she slams commercial rusks for being high in sugar. And now she's on the Cheerios box, blithely ignoring the sugar content!

rice krispies, cornflakes or weetabix all shops own not a Nestle in sight which is also the only choices of cereal at nursery too.

Nature's path is nice, they sell it at local Siansbob's, but it was £2.30 for a box!

The % of sugar is simply from the "per 100g" bit of the nutritional information. 21g per 100g is sugar.

I don't worry overly about the amount of sugar but don't, for example, let them have chocolate hoops (around 40g per 100g) every morning and don't let them have, say, Waitrose "sugar puffs" (which came in at close to 50g per 100g) at all. They also have wholemeal toast or weetabix several mornings a week so I think it all balances out.

mine are allowed cheeriosa dn then REALLY nasty oneson birthdays or special days

today ( for ds2s birthday we have "coc pops crunchies cna you handle the crunch")

all in moderation

Why do these companies keep putting hydrogenated veg oil in so many foods designed for kids? It is so annoying. I am always obsessive when shopping and I keep reading the labels but find that once you've decided that a food is OK the manufacturers will change the ingredients to something I don't want to feed my girls. I brought some "new lower sugar Sugar Puffs" today. Its still 35% sugars though and they dont tell you what percentage of the sugars is fructose. Still better than that waitrose figure though!

Interestingly I found that 'shops own' (Sainburys in this case) salt content in most cereals is actually higher that the branded versions....and not sure why, but I have more of a hang up about salt content than I do sugar....

So...Saunbury Malties are now out and Nestle Shreddies are back in!!

Chipmonkey, I remember going off Miriam Stoppard when I was pregnant and living in my little cell in student halls (ok, not her fault, but still...) and her book suggested installing a sink in the baby's room. It made me fuming, pregnancy hormones aside, and I just wonder to this day what it must be like to live in her little world, where babies are all perfect and mums always smile, etc, etc...

Yes, littlelamb, I much prefer the sort of book where they tell you the baby doesn't even need a cot, you can put them in an empty drawer! My Mum had a book like that when I was little, can't remember who wrote it but I liked their style!