I know breakfast cereals are mostly rubbish, but...

[CharlotteCollins]

...are there some that are ok?

I got rid of them this summer and since then the DCs and I have been having much nicer breakfasts, tbh. We eat a variety of good things now: porridge, yoghurt/fromage frais, stewed fruit, fresh fruit, toast, omelette, even kippers yesterday.

But I have kept bran flakes and muesli, which the DCs eat occasionally but I eat often. I think they're not as bad as the more processed ones - is that right?

Still, the DCs are missing cereal occasionally - and although I have the time to cook a little, it would be nice to have something that needs no preparation some days.

Are there any which are better than the rest? Weetabix, for example? Hoping someone with more knowledge than I have can help me!

:) peas

I don't mind the dcs having a bit of sugar but I do like them to have some real nutrients with it. I would prefer they didn't eat cereals because they are so over processed and the more you process foods the more you destroy their resemblance to real food and any nutrient content, hence why most cereals have artificially added vitamins, which are a poor substitute imo.
How about making some fruit muffins for the freezer, they will defrost overnight or 20sec blast in the microwave. Or waffles freeze well and defrost in the toaster.

Ooh, fruit muffins - yum. Great idea, thanks, Dancing.

I like Shredded Wheat, the plain one, but then I don't really have a sweet tooth. Possibly because I was hardly ever allowed them as a child so didn't get used to things tasting sweet.

Cornflakes are among the less sugary of the ones with sugar added, iirc. Quaker oat crisp are quite low in sugar too, and popular with my toddler. Bran flakes tend to have quite a bit of sugar I think, perhaps to offset the more "wholemeal" taste of the bran. But I haven't checked labels for a while so may be wrong.

How are fruit muffins better than breakfast cereal?

Families - I'm assuming homemade

Don't have recipe to hand but I make the children also. The easiest are made with x3 mashed banana and x100g apple purée. Then mixture of wholemeal flours/ ground almonds, various nuts and raising agents etc. They have fruit sugars in sure, but I think fairly healthy

• make the children muffins!

( I don't make actual children by mixing purée and flour!)

Families to my knowledge, the more processed a food is the less it resembles real food. Processing destroys vitamins and minerals, the artificial vitamins they are forced to add back in again are no where near as beneficial as the natural form, I make food like muffins with real ingredients like eggs, milk, fruit & veg, wheat - they contain a good variety of foods. You may not agree that real food is more nutritious and you might be right and I may be wrong but I can live with that!

I get that more processed foods aren't as good, but I've never come across an edible muffin mix that doesn't have sugar in it (either granulated or in fruit) - which is one of the objections covered above to things like muesli and granola

Yep muffins will almost certainly contain some sugar either from fruit or the more refined stuff - I did say that I didn't mind some sugar but it needed to be served along side some good stuff. I don't include over processed wheat products in my list of good stuff.