Breakfast cereals for children?

[amyboo]

Just wondering if anyone has any ideas: DS (nearly 2) has seemingly got bored with his morning bowl of weetabix, and I don't really know what other cereal is low enough in sugar to give him (he has enough energy and really doesn't need more!). I'm not entirely anti-sugar, but I just know that a lot of cereals have hidden sugar and salt in them... He seems to really like my crunchy museli with dried fruits and I ended up giving him a bowl this morning. Is it OK to give small kids museli? I wasn't sure. He's not a huge fan of Cheerios, but will eat porridge. What others are OK to give him?

I'd like to carry on giving him cereal (rather than toast or fruit/yogurt) as he is addicted to both of those things and gets enough of them later in the day!

OOOh, looks like I'll have to get myself to the English supermarket (I live in Belgium) to try some of these options. I was an addict for Shreddies as a child, so I think I'll try him on those and maybe the shredded wheat with raisins, as he loves raisins. He managed to eat some museli this morning, but it takes him forever, and seeing as me and DH work full time, we need something a bit quicker in the mornings otherwise we're all late leaving the house!

I make porridge and add various things to it for variety (at the cooking stage): bananas/shredded apples/ cinnamon/vanilla/cocoa/raisins/prunes

Amyboo, we are in Belgium too. You can get Raisin Wheats at most of the larger supermarkets (I get them at GB/Carrefour).

Otherwise, Stone Manor have the Waitrose own brand cheerios.

Thanks gastronome - he seems to have gone off Cheerios though. I'm currently working my way through our last box from Stonmanor...

My DDs love cornflakes. Even take a small container of them as snack in their lunchboxes for school. Easy to eat with fingers or spoon.

ReadyBrek with raisins on top. Sometimes mash in a banana depending on how well DS is eating other fruit at the time. As a special treat at weekends he gets cheerios on the top!

Christ no wonder our children are so sickly these days.

Read 'Nourishing Traditions' by Sally Fallon. Breakfast cereals are not food. they are highly processed, denatured foods - even the 'healthy ones'. Grape nuts are a junk food in our house. Do not listen to the marketeers - anything that requires money spent in convincing you its edible is not.

Make old fashioned, whole groat porridge (in the slow cooker) with raw honey or maple syrup.
Wholemeal soldiers and butter with a soft boiled organic egg.
Buy proper sausages and bacon (not the stuff that is 'smoked' with a chemical paste and made from industrial pork producing machines aka. pigs)
Fruit and plain, organic yoghurt.
Glass of raw milk.

Problem of course is that most PARENTS (not mothers - I think its safe to say that most women sacrifice enough of their time for their kids) are too damn lazy to cook for their children. My step-granddaughter is given formula milk that her parents can't even be bothered to warm up!!

Cereals are popular for the simple reason that they take fuck all time to prepare.
Check out Dr. Natasha Campbell Mcbride's website.

Ah well.
At least breakfast cereals come fortified with vitamins for those of us whose toddlers look askance at anything that might be described as vegetable. And are excellent at soaking up milk for those of us with toddlers who won't accept milk as a drink, no matter how raw and organic in origin.

Every cloud has a silver lining.

Ready Brek is just plain porridge, it's more finely milled is all.

ClarryKitten - what is my milk and egg allergic child supposed to survive on then?

I suppose it's my fault that she's so 'sickly'

Have my first ever

Btw I have no idea what grape nuts are. I have an inkling you may be american? One extreme to the other...

Mine have porridge mainly in the week, they are also allowed wheetabix, shreddies (not shreddies, tesco malt wheats which are like shreddies but with less sugar and not made by Nestle) and muesli (no added sugar or salt variety). Those are the options because of health (some healthier than others) and because they are the ones that fill them up properly too for the busy weekdays with school, nursery etc. At weekends they are allowed cornflakes and cheerios (tesco multigrain hoops!) as a treat.

I dare say I should "bother" to cook more for my children. Clearly I don't love them enough or something but I'd have to be up at the sparrow's fart to cook breakfast so I shall stick to providing home cooked from scratch for lunch and dinner and feeding the highly processed crap that is a mixture of oats, bran and dried fruit for breakfast.

Pondering what 'raw honey' is at this end, too.

And raw milk is pretty hard to get in the UK (much as I used to love it... before my mum was diagnosed with TB, anyway).

not much raw milk round these parts ..............

I love grape nuts.

What is raw honey?

Sally Fallon's nutrition theories have been discredited by medical and health experts, and are not based on any kind of science. Don't think we'll kill our kids by feeding them (healthy, sugar and salt-free) cereals!

Raw honey is honey that has not been heat treated.

hey - they're not my kids, couldn't care less if you lot want to look after them properly or not. Personally i wouldn't feed my children food that I knew perfectly well was not good for them. But then, i spend my time reading about the state of the industrialised food chain instead of watching T.V or listening to these so called medical experts (Industry puppets who condone products like benecol and yakult).

you can buy Raw milk from www.hookandsons.com and there are more cases of TB from pasteurized milk than raw each year.

Pinkpeony you feed your kids whatever you like I would just rather you knew the truth about what it is precisely you're feeding them. now you have 2 choices - believe what the adverts say about how nutritious cocopops are (how could the ads be misinforming us?) or you could actually read about how cereals are made and how even the sugar/salt free ones are totally unsuitable foodstuffs.

Reading list:
Nutrition and physical degeneration - Weston Price.
We Want Real Food - Graham Harvey
Sugar Blues - Wiliam dufty
Eat your heart out - Felicity Lawrence.
Gut and Psychology Syndrome - Dr. Natasha Campbell Mcbride (A medical doc. who successfully treats children with autism).
In Defence of Food - Pollan.

Read these books and you will know why our children are so ill these days. We cannot continue feeding another generation in this manner.

lukewarm - your child may not react to raw milk...many children allergic to pasteurized milk can handle raw milk. Try giving her raw yolks from organic eggs - if she has a delicate system raw is always better.

Sorry for being hostile, i just cannot bear it when people stand by poorly informed choices and propagate industry lies. we need to fight the despicable state of the food industry not protect it.

i spend my time reading about the state of the industrialised food chain

Good for you. Bet the winter nights fly by in your house.

Clarrykitten - I'll bear your advice in mind as she's dying in hospital from anaphylactic shock .

What incredibly ignorant advice.

My DS won't eat anything that isn't solid - i.e. weetabix/porridge. However, the novelty factor is always kept alive with the weird sort of 'cereal trifle' that he has each morning. Has a mix of a few cereals, which drives me crazy as takes a lot longer to agree what is going in there. Has a mix of Shreddies, Rice Krispies, Own brand Cheerios, Frosties (rarely), has also had RK shapes and has raisins, almonds, bits of cruncyhy muesli from us.

Clarry, I give my daughter Formula Milk that I don't even bother to warm up as it does not make it any more nutitionally beneficial, and results in me dithering to warm the bugger when Im out and about. I like that she takes the milk at room temp as she can have it the instant she requires it. I have looked long and hard into ANY negatives of not warming FMilk, and it is simply a matter of preference. It does not make the milk any more nutritional or make any difference to the baby's hunger/digestion than warmed Fmilk.

Oh, well then my children get raw honey. My mum gives it to us from her bees.

neglects to mention said bees live near main road, probably not proper hippy raw honey after all

I'm better off with friaries than rice crispies, I put so much sugar on them. I like to find a sweet pile in my last spoonful of milk