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!

That said frosties I know it did!

Our Ds (age nearly 6 and 3.5 ) have cereal every day on school days.they always have either a weetabix or oatibix and then a mixture of muesli/shreddies/branflakes/rice crispies/cornflakes/special k/ shredded wheat/oatiflakes etc they also like ready brek porridge. We are a bit more adventurous on weekends.

DS (2) & DS (4)

Bran flakes (one with the cockadoodledo)
Egg on toast
Porridge (and banana)
Museli (dorset cereals)
Banana & Cheerios
Weetabix
Bagel & cream cheese
Toast & marmite
Buttermilk pancakes (sometimes)

Clarrykitten - Thank you for your post. Very informative. I do need to make better choices for my son, and get him into better habits for the rest of his life.

come on then clarry....
"Buy proper sausages and bacon (not the stuff that is 'smoked' with a chemical paste and made from industrial pork producing machines aka. pigs)"

or to shorten it... Buy proper sausages and bacon (not the stuff that is... made from .... pigs)

wtaf? you buy proper bacon that isn't made from pigs? Do enlighten me....

"there are more cases of TB from pasteurized milk than raw each year."

That means sod all without knowing the figures as a percentage of milk drinkers so what percentage of pasturised milk drinkers get TB vs what percentage of raw milk drinkers get it.

Bakewell - if you're being sincere...fantastic. its not easy finding proper food these days, so much of it is of the 'added value' variety but being, in essence, nothing more than industry waste. There is little left of our culture that we can simply take for granted. No generation has ever been fed in this manner so the cavalier attitude 'they'll all turn out ok cos it never did me any harm' will not suffice. Our children will get i'll and degenerate before middle age if we do not start making better choices.

btw - I wasn't born this great or well informed, i used to feed my first son crap food until he was about 4.

gemma that's true, I'm worried now. My dcs had sausages for dinner, we all did. I thought they would be OK, they are nice free range ones made by the farmer's missus and sold in his lovely farm shop but they are still made from pig . How could I have fed such crap to my children! I'm destroying them from the inside!

Does anyone know if the mince I bought will be OK to give them? It is lovely quality, from the same farmer's cows but it is still made of cow.

I am being sincere. I am looking at a couple of the books you recommended on Amazon.

gemma - I meant properly raised pigs. Not intensively farmed pigs that are fed unsuitable feeds and kept in stressful conditions.

Bacon is not smoked anymore it is cured with a smoke flavoured paste.

EVERYTHING in our food system has changed in the last 20 years. You think a carrot is just a carrot and that because veg is good for me it will be fine. but you don't know that that carrot was probably grown in Hertfordshire, flown to Kenya to be washed and packed only to be returned to a supermarket 10 miles away from where it was picked. It will have been sprayed countless times for carrot fly, washed in chemicals designed to strip the top layer of flesh off giving it that wet look in the bag so it always looks fresh. From the very start it would have been grown in a burnt out soil that provides it with nothing more than a medium from which to grow in.

This is not farming and it is definitely not food.

DS (nearly 2) gets to choose between

Shreddies
Cheerios
Rice Krispies Multigrain shapes (aka Man Cereal)
Toast

On very, very special occasions he is allowed coco pops, but the packet is hidden from view!

bakewell - wonderful. May I recommend any of Felicity Lawrence's books to get started. They are accessible and up to date. x

I have to acknowledge your point of view Clarry in that the more I've been looking at cereals the more I have wondered whether they are the best choice for my kids. Even ones that look extremely healthy on the packaging have some form of sugar listed high up in the ingredients and have frighteningly high levels of sugar.
I have never eaten cereals really and have worked on getting my kids to eat cereals as I thought they were the healthy option (because it is so customary to eat them)
I think my chooks will be playing more of a role at breakfast time than they have up till now and there'll be a few more boiled eggs appearing than before (and yes it will mean me getting up a little earlier and making a bit more effort - however,I would not class myself to be lazy ,but a busy working Mum)

What are these grape nuts you speak of and where do you get them,please? (sorry if you've already answered this and I've missed it)

balance people, it's all about balance

nothing wrong with eg coco pops for breakfast, lunch made with organic/free range meat and veg box veg, haribo sweets, then homemade bread and soup for tea

It really doesn't have to be all or nothing

Weetabix is actually quite high in sugar and salt. Not as high as some other breakfast cereals, true, but there are some very sweet cereals out there! The only cereal without sugar or salt is Shredded Wheat or some of it's supermarket copies. And most kids don't want to eat shredded wheat without sugar on top...

While I don't ban cereals, I am aware that they aren't a healthy option & try and offer porridge, toast, eggs etc on most days.

For the milk intolerant porridge can be made with water. In fact thats the traditional way and how I always make it.

My DD has never been a cereal eater because she hate milk, but last week she had bitesized shredded wheat with natural pouring yogurt - that Danone stuff in litre cartons, I buy it for smoothies.

Worth a try if they're bored with their usual cereal and milk perhaps - keep the cereal, change the liquid.

countess - Brilliant...although i wouldn't even give it to my chickens! lol. There have been studies on rats using cornflakes. rats fed cornflakes and rats fed the box - guess which group did better?

Grape nuts are rubbish too. ALL processed cereals are poor foodstuffs, even if they contained no sugar or salt. It is the way grain is treated during the process of making all those silly little shapes that renders it totally useless as a foodstuff. add sugar to that empty mix and you've got nothing but a method of removing minerals from your child's body just to digest the bloody stuff!

Its a simple rule where food is concerned - the less its messed with the better (including how that food is raised). Eggs are food, butter is food, proper bacon is food, old fashioned porridge is food, old fashioned bread is food. Wheat, whole or otherwise, heated to a temperature that would have atoms pulling at the collar, smashed into fun little shapes then covered in anti-caking agents, salt, sugar, corn syrup and god knows what else is definitely not food.

lukewarm - No. perhaps at our age it doesn't matter to have the odd bowl of sugar for breakfast but a growing child needs good food at every meal. they'd do better starving that starting their day on sugar and refined salt.

Essentially anything that requires millions spent on it in order to CONVINCE you to eat it isn't worth eating.

Well you've got my vote Clarry! I have to say my kids don't get a whole lot of processed food but I'd always classed cereals as a basic food up till now.Well,clearly,they're not by the time they reach our breakfast table (by and large)

countess - buy a copy of 'Nourishing Traditions' by Sally Fallon. If you don't find it one of the most valuable books you'll ever come across I promise (and i never promise) to give you the money back for it.

Its not perfect, but then nothing is (except me), but it is one hell of a good start in identifying the hidden side of food today. x

Dragonwoman weetabix is not high in sugar and salt. I am a cereal-packet nerd.

In order of sugar content, lowest to highest, these are the cereals I allow:

porridge
ready brek
shredded wheat
weetabix
rice krispies
cornflakes
multigrain rice krispie cereal
raisin wheats
no-added sugar alpen
honey nut shredded wheat (no, I can't work it out either)
own-brand shreddies
own-brand cheerios

and these are the ones I don't:
bran flakes
weetos
sugar puffs
coco pops
frosties
or any of the other marketed-at-kids stuff

Lots of good suggestions here.

I'll add
crunchy bran - I get it in sainsburys or waitrose

Have you had a look at Natures path cereals? Usually get them in health food shop or waitrose, sugar levels are reasonable in those, but they are pricey - I save them for kids, DH is banned! Mine like:

Mesa Sunrise flakes
Crispy rice
Millet rice flakes

They are also wheat free, which I like as DC are very fond of bread, this gets some other grains into them, which strikes me as a good thing.

The cereals they do for kids are too high in sugar for us (typical!).

Normal full-size weetabix aren't high in sugar - but the little ones which appeal more to me many kids are sugary.

You see, I think you have a point Clarry - but are not doing your point any favours with your tone or bad science references.
I have a milk and egg allergic child - his Paediatric Immunologist would disagree with " Try giving her raw yolks from organic eggs - if she has a delicate system raw is always better " Heating the egg denatures the proteins (to which he is allergic) so my son can tolerate egg in baked goods but not raw.

DCs like cornflakes, ready brek, crumpets, toasted pitta bread with butter/jam, toast, natural yogurt with jam/fruit/granola sprinkled on the top.

When I am feeling energetic they love proper porridge, boiled eggs, pancakes and buttermilk drop scones, all of which require effort and cooking but usually less than 10 minutes.

They requested these for breakfast tomorrow. They gobble them up warm from the oven.