Yes, it’s convenient. Kids love it. With a good sale and some coupons, you can get it dirt cheap. But is dirt cheap the way you want to start your day?
Besides the fact that it’s often little more than highly processed, refined, stripped grains with some high-tech vitamins sprayed on (yummy!), most appealing cereals give you little more than a sugar high to start the day.
No wonder everyone’s grumpy and hungry by 10:00.
When tempted by the deals (and I’m not a purist — if the deal’s good enough, my kids are allowed cereal in our game bag or for a treat, and we’ve even eaten it on a really rushed *gasp* morning or twelve) I think in volume. What I can see.
4 grams of sugar = 1 teaspoon sugar
Do you know how much sugar is in your cereal?
- Kellogg’s Mini Wheats = 3 teaspoons
- Honey Nut Clusters = 4+ teaspoons
- Post Fruit n Fibre = 4 teaspoons
- Post Premium Raisin Bran = 5 teaspoons
And that’s the “healthy” ones!
Yes. Low sugar cereals can be found.
But still. To start the morning? To feel full past 9:00? Protein is the breakfast of champions.
- whole grain toast with peanut butter and a glass of milk
- eggs in any way, shape or form with some muffins (not to be mistaken with cupcakes!) or toast
- green smoothie with toast
- homemade granola with nuts and sunflower seeds, served over yogurt or with milk and fruit
- whole wheat waffles or pancakes with fruit
Skip the morning sugar high. Start your day right with some protein. Works for me!
Amy, I know you have tons of recipes that should be linked in your list!!!
In my quest for healthier eating, I have long known that I really need to give up cereal for breakfast. I’m tentatively doing that this week, though I need to just jump in and do it. Wish me luck . . .
I like to try new foods, but healthy stuff…nope. Cool tip though.
So the Aldi brand Cheerios have a 1/2 teaspoon of sugar per serving and that’s all the sugar they eat all day. I think I can live with that.
Hey, why did you have to write this after I stocked up on 7 boxes of cereal yesterday?
Just kidding!
I do buy the “junky” cereals when they are on sale, but we only use them for our snacks, not breakfast! Our snacks for the day are morning: fruit, afternoon: vegetable and then in the evening, something not so healthy.
I have been working on master breakfast and lunch list and this comes in very handy!
I am always reading labels, because I have to avoid milk, eggs and artificial colors. Finding cereal (which is my sons favorite snack) is very difficult. You know how the ingredients are listed in order of largest ingredient to smallest? I picked up a box a few weeks ago that sugar was the first ingredient. I couldn’t believe it.
We agree. We haven’t done the boxed cereal thing, much, but have found that we NEED a high protein breakfast everyday to make it past 10am. Oatmeal and sausage and a glass of milk; peanut butter whole wheat toast, milk, and egg; etc. The interesting thing is the more protein you eat at breakfast, the less protein you’ll need throughout the day. On heavy-project days we’ll have steak and potatoes for breakfast, and sometimes we’re not even hungry for lunch, except for fruit or veggies! Great post!
Yikes! Is that per serving or whole box?
((Cringe)) that is too much sugar.
I appreciate this post and the info you have here.
We can’t eat those sugary cereal! We are in a coma by 10 a.m.
Wow, never would have guessed raisin bran had that much. Guess I need to start reading the boxes.
The 3 year old doesn’t eat much cereal for breakfast, he prefers oatmeal, but he would sell his baby brother for a handful of Lucky Charms. I blame my husband for letting him have them. Until then he was happy with plain Cheerios.
I’ve always paid attention to the amount of sugar that was in the cereal. Can’t help it, Mom would never buy us any cereal that had more than 13 grams of sugar. I knew that was a lot, but didn’t realized that 4 grams=1 tsp. Holy Toledo!
Thankfully, after DH’s Cholesterol diagnosis, we’ve axed cereal almost completely out. Thanks for the perspective! Go Protein Filled Breakfasts!
I know, crazy isn’t it! We do have some cereal around here just because it is convenient and fast, but I try to do the protein/fiber meals as much as possible. Cereal doesn’t keep me going much past 10am and I’m not nearly as active as my kiddoes. We like to make our own egg McMuffins for breakfast — yum!
Sugary cereal is about the worst thing you could eat first thing in the a.m. according to my doctor! Protein makes for such a better start to the day.
Excellent post! I agree 100% that we shouldn’t be eating so much processed food, esp for breakfast, but I’m going to throw a little wrench in your gears. I, too, was wondering how so many “healthy” cereals (raisin bran is a great example) had more g of sugar than the sugary cereals! I realized: the total includes natural fruit and nut sugars, so it’s the raisins in the RBran that are upping that count so much. (Check the side of your raisin tub to see how much natural sugar is in them.) Thanks for the encouragement to get off my duff and make scrambled eggs tomorrow!
Great post! I try to limit sugar intake in our house as much as possible – especially white sugar. Unfortunately, low sugar recipes are hard to come by, but I try to improvise with dates, frozen apple juice concentrate, or cutting the sugar. If you check out my blog (which I haven’t updated in forever, my bad!) I have a chart of how white blood cells are affected by sugar consumption (which is why we really try to cut back on sugar when the flu is going around): http://bit.ly/W27kL
Have a good day. =)