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Original poster

Healthy Cereals

66 replies

Metrobaby · 26/11/2004 13:02

What healthy cereals can I get without lots of added sugar and salt? So far the only ones I can come up with are shredded wheat or porridge oats or ready brek with fruit.

OP posts:
hoxtonchick · 28/11/2004 11:34

we eat museli or porridge

hoxtonchick · 28/11/2004 11:39

oh, but am not that virtuous as ds has sugar puffs at nursery 2 mornings a week which i assume are as bad as you can get....

hovely · 28/11/2004 12:42

you can get other kinds in the 'free-from' aisle at tescos. Nobody in our family has problems with wheat, but I try to give a bigger variety of cereals, otherwise with bread, pasta, pizza bases and biscuits you just end up with wheat wheat wheat. We like Mesa Sunrise (linseed & amaranth, but it does have sugar in it) and Millet Flakes (oat & millet sweetened with apple juice, no sugar as such).
I have read that too much fibre makes it difficult for young children to access the nutrients in food, so I might keep DonnaLouise's cake recipe for when mine are a bit older.

sparkler1 · 28/11/2004 13:24

my kids eat ready brek, shreddies and weetabix. we do have "treat" cereals in the cupboard too but I always say that they have to have one of the above first before they get the "treat". I know then that they have had some goodness inside them to set them up for the day.

duvet · 28/11/2004 20:15

This is very interesting to hear especially about cheerios - got the impression they were meant to be healthy. I'm always wondering about yogurts so many seem to have sugar as the 1st in the ingredients list anyone know of more healthy yogurts - how do you know how much sugar is in them? They should label them more clearly like with the salt content.

Debbiethemum · 28/11/2004 20:39

On a similar topic. Does anyone have any ideas what I can give my 7.5 month old for breakfast. She doesn't like the baby cereals, or seem very keen on baby jars of porridge. Yoghurt just seems too insubstantial a meal to start the day.

I cook all her other meals, so really want a no-cook option for breakfast. Also dh has to get both children up & out to the childminder by himself 4 days a week so it needs to be easy to prepare as well.

Thanks
Debbie

strawberry · 29/11/2004 16:35

Debbie - not sure if you've started your baby on oats/wheat yet but I used to add various fruit purees to ready brek for DS's b'fast. You could add some yoghurt too. HTH

Pidge · 29/11/2004 16:42

Debbiethemum - If you've introduced wheat - ready brek has (I think) no salt and no sugar, and you just add milk and then you can stir in some fruit if you like.

Also what about weetabix - mashed up and stir in either milk or natural yogurt with some banana.

It does involve cooking but cooking up oats or quinoa flakes only takes 5 mins - even faster in the microwave if you can master it without it boiling over everywhere! You may even find you can cook it in batches, freeze it and then add more milk when you defrost and reheat it.

wordsmith · 29/11/2004 17:15

Healthy cereals for kids, hmmmm.... just avoid ANY that are marketed as 'kids' cereals'!!!

Bramshott · 30/11/2004 11:43

My DD is desperate to eat Bran Flakes but I'm resisting because I'm scared of what they might do to her digestion/nappies! She's nearly 2. Anyone got any advice?

strawberry · 30/11/2004 11:47

Ds likes bran flakes and has been eating them since 2 yrs old. He's certainly quite regular every morning! They don't seem to cause him any problems. I would probably draw the line at All-Bran though!

Pidge · 30/11/2004 12:02

Bramshott - my dd (2.4) has been eating bran flakes for ages. We get them from the health-food shop though, because the Kellogs ones are actually pretty high in sugar. And we tend to mix them with some corn-flakes too. She loves them.

lisalisa · 30/11/2004 12:37

Message withdrawn

Rhubarb · 30/11/2004 12:40

I find Coco-Pops to be very healthy, I add a bit of sugar for the taste, any maybe honey, and there you have a great healthy start to the day!

fairyfly · 30/11/2004 12:40

Kashi, from health food shops its puffed rice. Just the same as sugar puff but with nothing in. My kids love them and think they are giraffe eggs

Pidge · 30/11/2004 13:20

lisalisa - at the risk of further developing my reputation as a quinoa bore - it's fab stuff. Just boil/simmer up the flakes in milk for 4-5 minutes until it looks like a mushy porridge - use quite a lot of milk because the flakes swell up - a rough guess would be 1-2 heaped tbsp flakes to 4 fl oz milk (maybe more milk). You can use cows milk, EBM or formula. It makes a porridge, which is in itself not very exciting, but my dd loves it with a banana mashed in, or some cooked apricot / prune puree (I have cubes of this in the freezer).

And yes it is a protein - not only that it is some kind of wonder food because it is a 'complete' protein. Don't ask me what that means, but it is supposed to be super good for you!

I gave it to my dd from 6 months and she still has quinoa porridge at weekends now she's 2.4.

Bozza · 30/11/2004 13:36

Debbiethemum - I've given microwaved ready brek to DS and now to DD from 6 months. Add a cube of pureed prunes due to both kids tendency to constipation at that age. DS is now onto weetabix. Only cereals we have in the house are ready brek (DD), weetabix (DS), bran flakes (DH), porridge oats (me). DH and DS have raisins on their cereal, DD her prunes and I have (I'm the naughty one) syrup.

lisalisa · 01/12/2004 11:54

Message withdrawn

clary · 01/12/2004 13:34

just wanted to add on the Cheerios line...they actually have hydrogenated veg oil (trans fat, very bad for the heart). I was really angry when I found out as they are marketed as healthy kids' cereal fgs
Trying to elimiate all trans fat from diet but not easy.
We have weetabix (has salt and sugar but not too much) and shreddies and rice krispies.
Frosted shreddies are 50% sugar i believe!

Pidge · 01/12/2004 13:40

lisalisa - my quinoa flakes have a best before date on them - but they keep for a long time. Just like oats and stuff really.

Dd is just beginning to assert her influence on the brekky front - she's 2.4 and I only do porridge at weekends now, during the week it's cornflakes / branflakes / weetabix. She objected a bit about the porridge a while ago, but recently seems to be rather keen again on it. I always mash in banana or pureed prune or apricot, so it's actually pretty sweet. The joy of her discovering coco-pops is still ahead of us. I used to love them as a child!

Interesting about the complete protein stuff - I knew it was supposed to be a 'super food'!!

MrsDoobaubles · 01/12/2004 14:33

Weetabix. Sugar free muesli

MrsDoobaubles · 01/12/2004 14:38

where do you get quinoa flakes? I am interested too

Cha · 01/12/2004 16:19

Was about to post on the very same subject! Am OUTRAGED about Cheerios - had been feeding them to my two thinking they were healthier. There should be laws against this sort of thing! Oh, there are. There should be laws against the loopholes, then. (No pun intended)

My two DID have Cheerios sprinkled on top of the less popular weetabix / shreddies (I always suspected that Cheerios weren't so good and only have them in the house for dp and my step son who only eat sugary cereals). Tried porridge once and everyone hated it. The dog had it in the end and then proceeded to be sick about a hundred times all over the house. Not going there again.

Even though I tried to get my kids to eat healthier cereals, it was usually a struggle (they want what their step brother has and they KNOW it is the cupboard ) but recently I gave in and put half a teaspoon of brown sugar over their weetabix. Surprise surprise, have since found it gets nearly all eaten. I also put raisins on dd's which she likes, but if I do it to ds (15 months) he spends hours fishing them out and eating them and then leaves the cereal behind.

I personally love Grape Nuts, and put them over my museli, though probably the reason I like them so much is that they have sugar in them...

Pidge · 01/12/2004 16:24

MrsDoBaubles - I get my quinoa flakes from our local health food shop (actually a sort of Indian grocers that sell everything!). You need to get the flakes NOT the grains for making porridge.

I detest porridge myself - in fact I don't eat cereal either. I used to eat dry weetabix as a child because I hated milk so much! Now I'm a sliced banana and natural yogurt freak - that's another good one for little ones in the morning. Had some pear chopped into it too this morning, yum.

SamN · 01/12/2004 16:37

Have been to my local healthfood store and stocked up on rice flakes, quinoa flakes, buckwheat flakes and millet flakes!

Just wanted to check, do they all need cooking or could I make a kind of muesli out of any of them to eat 'raw'?