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!

When I said Wheatabix were quite high in sugar & salt, I mean that such things are added to them. No they aren't very sweet compared to alot of things we eat, but we live in a very sugary environment!

But I think they are quite high in salt & sugar compared to their 'healthy' image. Most people are very surprised to find they contain either of these things. OK I know fruit is sugary, but you expect that don't you. And you expect Frosties to be full of sugar. But most people don't expect Wheatabix to contain any sugar. And most people don't read the box.

Sayjay, I can only apologise for my tone. Im bitter and twisted - the more i see of the world the less satisfied i am with it.

I cannot hope to comment on individual cases such as yours. your child being allergic to what are very commonly accepted foodstuffs must be exhausting but it doesn't negate the fact that they are, in their best forms, good foods. I suggested eating them raw only because I've heard many people who are lactose intolerant can have raw milk as milk, when untreated, pretty well eats itself (comes with enzymes ready to process it). raw egg yolk is better for you generally - but, as i've said, i cannot comment on your particular situation. some people are allergic to sunshine!

However you might want to investigate the work of Dr Natasha Campbell Mcbride. She runs a clinic in Cambridge and specialises in treating children with allergies, digestive probs, autism etc by changing their diet.

A dentist told me that if sugar is listed in the first 3 ingredients I should avoid buying things.

Our main breakfasts are
porridge
sugar free rice crispies (think the brand is Kallo)
toast and honey
muesli (not nut ones) with dried fruits

Terrys. Good advice however i will add to that by saying you're better off with sugar if the alternative is artificial sweeteners like Aspartame.

DD has one of shreddies, rice crispies or cheerios plus a slice of wholemeal toast with marmite. But I would conceed that she had formula that I didn't even bother to heat up until she went onto cow's milk at 12 months (straight from the fridge) so you might want to ignore me.

I've had a look at Dr Natasha Campbell Mcbride's work. She is a quack. She runs a clinic near to Cambridge, but it is nothing to do with the University or Addenbrooke's Hospital.

scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/08/gaps_in_a_doctors_reasoning_about_vaccines.php

Her writing makes little sense at best and, at worst, is dangerous.

To everyone else, thanks for the ideas about breakfasts. I find it hard to think of new things. This morning, I made banana bread from the Baby Led Weaning Cookbook, but DS wasn't that impressed and wanted his dad's sultana bran instead!

Sally Fallon and Dr Natasha Campbell McBride are both quacks AFAIK, and some of what they propose is actually dangerous. I try to avoid processed foods for my children and am very careful about reading labels. However Sally Fallon is the only person who ever mentioned extrusion for producing breakfast cereals being unhealthy and it is not based on any scientific studies (and all her theories are based on a dentist who published a book in the 1930s). She is a cookbook writer who studied English, not a nutritionist, health professional or scientist.
FWIW, my children generally eat (home-made, organic) toast for breakfast, or (sugar-free, salt-free) muesli, fresh fruit, (sugar-free) yoghurt, etc.

Remember too that anyone can call themselves a "nutritionist". You don't need any proper qualifications or to be registered with anyone.

Go for dieticians who will be registered with the Health Professions Council and have real qualifications.

Puppet people - you're so amusing. You gobble up government and industry propaganda like it were...well the latest fad food! You make decisions based predominantly on advertising, have read very few BOOKS on the subject of modern food and yet are perfectly content to denounce perfectly respectable, intelligent people as quacks. You're a marketeers dream.

Errrm. How do you know what people read?
Extrapolating from the evidence, much?

?Medical journals are no more than ?an extension of the marketing arm of pharmaceutical companies? because a large proportion of their revenue comes from drug advertisements and reprints of company funded trials, claims former British Medical Journal editor, Richard Smith.

Just scratch the surface people - I dare you. See how the food you feed your children is really made.

All you can tell from the above is that Bartlet DID look at the person you recommended. And thinks, from what s/he's read, that said person is not terribly convincing.

I can assume with almost total confidence that bartlet has read very few books on the state of modern food - in fact i would say she, and many other mindless sheep like her, have read none. People do not read these days and if they do it is almost certainly fiction. At best they will do a quick google search - totally biased towards the result they want of course.

The simple truth is people do not want to lift the veil - they sense there is something very very wrong with society and they do not want to know so would rather carry on ignorant. That is why they defend their hopeless position so passionately - 'A quack!! its a quack!! look someone who demands that I make a decision on my own!! they don't have credentials! burn them!!'

I have no time for mindless sheep so long as they are quiet and keep their ill informed opinions to themselves. nothing worse that stupidity with a voice.

ClarryKitten, I think you might be verging on a personal attack there with "mindless sheep". If you want your comments to stand, then you might want to tone it down a little.

Although I do agree, there is nothing worse than "stupidity with a voice" ^

Bartlet - I adored the link btw. written by a man so convinced of what he believes he doesn't even give his name. He is blatantly an industry pawn but then he has an edge over you - at least he gets paid for supporting corruption.

Read 'Flat Earth News' by Nick Davies.

his entire article was nothing but name calling. He hasn't read her book (obvious from the content of his article) and to totally disregard all personal stories because they are unscientific is inhumane and well stupid. EVERYTHING we know or think we know began as a personal story.

tbh I think i well and truly fell down the verge then.

Oh, we don't have breakfast cereals, largely because of the processing/ crap quotient. I take full advantage of the fact that DS knows no better and feed him whatever's good/ going in the morning - so this morning we had brown rice and lentil salad (was making a lunch box) and we often have leftovers for breakfast (all suitable for lentil-weavery, natch). He always gets a bit of my (green) smoothie and DP has a porridge fixation, so he'll get some of that. TBH, porridge is not what I think of as a brilliant food (I know this isn't a popular position on the stuff but I am inclined towards natural hygiene but not enough to rigidly stick to it - nevertheless it is my barometer of what is healthy). Why do we have to eat 'breakfast' foods for breakfast? F that, I say.

Clarry you are wrong about how medical and scientific journals are funded (and I am talking about the serious ones here, not the ones you would read in your GP's waiting room). They make no revenues from advertising. They make all of their revenues from subscriptions, usually from university libraries, research centres and the like. All of the articles are peer reviewed by independent boards of academics who are not paid to do the reviews. They are actually really scientific. Having worked closely for the last 9 years with a large scientific publisher, I know that what you are saying is just incorrect.

Ah ha, PinkPeony! You admit to working with a scientific publisher! You are contaminated by association and quite possibly by Being Paid (goes off to eat own head boiled in organic honey)

Let's ignore clarry's ramblings, all classic of a conspiracy theorist. Everyone is tainted except her and her little band. It's all rather funny really!

"I can assume with almost total confidence that bartlet has read very few books on the state of modern food - in fact i would say she, and many other mindless sheep like her, have read none."

I'm not going to out myself by giving you a link to my publications and work in one of the top universities in the world, but I think that would demonstrate that that is not the case. Anyway, all my papers are in scientific journals and we know what you think of them...

Anyway, the BLW book has a nice recipe for a fruit and nut cake without any added sugar. Made the night before, it is lovely for breakfast or for a substantial snack.

So we've swung from one extreme to another but I'm struggling to find an answer. What should we have for breakfast?? I have 1/2hr to prepare and feed 3 under 4's, while they circle the kitchen or shout demands from the table. I can't throw a bowl full of overprocessed cereal at them quick enough!
If it's not available at the supermarket up the road then I can't/won't get it.

I grew up on a variety of Kelloggs finest and I'm not overweight, nor suffering from any medical conditions of complaints. I'm usually the first to scoff at "my parents did xyz and it did me no harm" but it's the only response I can think of here!

they're wearing skeleton pyjamas at the moment
or they're sitting at the table like little lords demanding a combination of 3 cereals with/without milk, toast/no toast, my meusli & dh's toast.

My kids don't get choices. They eat the food we give them or they starve.

And sure, there are certainly bigger fish to fry. If you give them whole grain cereal with no salt or sugar a few times a week, Im sure they'll be fine. Problem is it seems to set the standard and the parents who, for some inexplicable reason (can't be bothered to get up earlier), don't have time in the morning to cook a decent breakfast are also not going to bother much with making a good packed lunch or cook decent food in the evening...it adds up. The amount of kids i see with crisps, chocolate bars, tubed sugary yoghurt, white bread and processed meat sarnis etc. all washed down with some god awful Robinson's crap...it really doesn't surprise me that we're churning out half literate kids with varying levels of attention span and countless allergies, asthma, rotting teeth and poor vision when they're fed on such things.

We are living in a dark age - a dark age of education, medicine, nutrition and just general common sense. An age where children appear to be the focus of everything but in fact are being neglected, to their detriment.