Healthy Cereals

[Metrobaby]

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.

I saw on the tv (think it was Hilary Jones) that 'Muddles' are really good. Apparently they are good for the tummy as well as low in sugar and salt.

I'm going to switch then from Cheerios to Muddles then. DD eats dry ones as a snack and I was congratulating myself on how healthy her eating is. Outrageous that they fool us with that "lots of goodness for your little O's" crap.

I'm also going to give quinoa a go. Can you microwave it with the milk or can it only be simmered?

UK Cheerios must be different from US Cheerios. I'm looking at the ingredients on a box, and it has: Oats, modified corn starch, corn starch, sugar, salt, calcium carbonate, oat fiber, tripotassium phosphate, wheat starch, and vitamin E. No trans fats. The salt and sugar are in very small amounts, too; I can't imagine they would be the maximum allowed (for what?). I'd prefer the salt to be lower yet, but the sugar seems pretty reasonable at 1g per 30g of cereal. Most sweet cereals are more like 8-12 g per serving.

Californiagirl, I hope you're right.

I had always assumed Cheerios were one of the healthiest cereals you could get (except for the health food store type of cereal). My kids either have Cheerios or bran flakes. Occasionally, if we're on vacation or something, they get to have Froot Loops, but I know there are a lot of kids who eat cereal like that every day.

It occurs to me that there are forty-leven kinds of Cheerios these days and for all I know one of the horrible pointless new ones honey nut or frosted berry or even multigrain has transfats and oodles of sugar. But it's perfectly easy to tell from the side of the box that the plain old kind have no trans fats, very little sugar, and a moderate amount of salt. I'm told the multigrain ones have a lot more sugar.

I'm Canadian living in Ireland and we can't get the regular low sugar Cheerios here, only multigrain and honeynut kinds. I do give multigrain to my toddler but I'm sure they're only marginally better than coco pops!

SamN - I'm not sure about the cooking thing - I'm guessing that they're kind of like oats and you can eat those uncooked as in muesli, but that is a real guess. And to be honest for a young baby they might be pretty unpalatable if not cooked for a while.

Surfermum - you can definitely do quinoa flakes in the microwave - just like porridge oats. I have done it myself but am incredibly careless and always let it boil over, so tend to revert to the traditional saucepan technique!

Message withdrawn

Oh dear and at your DS and his superior knowledge! Maybe quinoa has a more bitter note than wheat and oat-based cereals. I confess I've never tried it on dd without some mashed banana or apricot or prune. She's had it inflicted on her since 6 months - poor kid.

sorry if cheerios now have no trans fat, but they certainly did at one stage in UK at least, which is why they're banned in our house. I can't check but maybe s/one else will?
Ready brek is good of course as just oats, no salt or sugar IIRC. Pain in the neck washing out the saucepan tho.

i microwave readybrek with no problem and no dirty pan. 30 secs on medium for my DD (6 months).

Ha christmasbooza, don't have a microwave (except the kids toy one and that doesn't really cut it...)

Thanks for the breakfast suggestions, DD loves Weetabix. Serving with formula, as I don't want to use my bm for that.

Thanks
Debbie

Cheerios update - they contain 'partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil' which is I think the deadly hydrogenated fat of which Clary speaks. Oh dear. They're not imported from the States of course but made here (by Nestle a Swiss company) so I'm afriad no reason to assume that the ingredients are the same as across the pond.

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Does anyone know what to do with quinoa grains? I bought some organic stuff from a health food shop. I read that it is covered in saponins - the bitter taste that deters birds from eating it and you have to place it under running water for two minutes before you cook it. Then what...
Do you mix with rice or have it on its own or what?
Incidentally I have been making porridge with water and then adding some banana and a bit of formula. I would use ebm but I'm too busy blending bits of veggie to get around to expressing milk - how do people manage????