My children would eat sugary cereal if it was in our home. Over the last few years I have slowly taken cereal out of our life. I rarely buy it and if I do its only healthier cereals. Well as healthy as you find. Now its rare that my kids will eat cold cereal. Actually my 5 year old twins are the only ones who will eat it. I broke the news to the kids and they pretty much didn't care. SHOCKER!!! I thought they would shriek in horror but no they took it like champs.
Here is how we get around not eating cereal.
-Oatmeal-not the prepackaged kind either. Just organic oats bought from the bulk section. Add water and heat. Pretty easy huh? Toppings include one of the following:brown sugar, nuts, fruit, or milk.
-English Muffins topped with my homemade jelly or butter
-Bagels-melted cheese or cream cheese
-Warm fresh bread slices with butter. I make my own bread and they will pass any food if I make homemade bread in the morning. So would I to be honest. Yummy!
-Fruit
-Homemade Muffins-this week its banana muffins
-last but not least cream cheese on saltines. I think my oldest daughter would live off these if I let her. No idea why she loves it but what ever floats her boat. She is a vegetarian so any protein is good I guess.
Which brings out many questions in my head. What do you eat in the morning? Do your kids eat the sugary cereal or prefer something else? How do you get around not buying these cereals? Am I the only crazy one? Well don't answer that!
10 comments:
I agree with you that cereal prices are way out of line. And it's all different kinds, not just the healthy ones. I usually grab a bagel on my way out the door. Fast and the package usually runs about $2.00.
Lately, we've been having one of the following:
1) a rice cake (admittedly, sweetened, so not wonderful, but could be worse)
2) granola bar
3) egg and cheese sandwich on whatever we have at home that I make the night before
Mix oats ($.89/lb for bulk at a nearby natural food store) with chopped or slice raw nuts. Toast for fifteen minutes at 350 degrees F, stirring once or twice. When cool add dried fruit and brown sugar if desired. I like cashews, almonds, raisins and dried bananas but I do substitute if they are too expensive. Crush or chop anything that isn't about raisin size. Store in a sealed container and serve with milk (or substitute). I make really big batches about every 3 weeks.
Anonymous-Cannot go wrong with bagels!
Swiggett-I forgot about rice cakes. Might have to look into those. We eat egg sandwiches when I get eggs marked down for cheap. Love them but my husband cannot stand them or the smell of them.
Diane-Mixed Oats? Dry oats? No honey to keep it clumping together? Is this a granola sort of thing? Sounds super yummy! Details!
We have a large family...13 children and find out this month if we are going to be able to adopt 6 more...with that in mind, frugality is a life style for us, and if there is a way to do it cheaper and healthier, I probably already do it...our breakfast list, (not cold cereal, it would take two boxes per morning for us, and as we eat 90% organic, would be $8 a day just for breakfast)...blueberry or banana pancakes, homemade waffles(we have the giant waffle iron), yellow organic grits, eggs any way you want them, millet casserole, oatmeal, cream of wheat, cream of buckwheat, our own big batch granola, fruit & yogurt smoothies, french toast, and an all time favorite anytime of the day...toast with peanut butter and HFCS-free syrup or honey poured over. All of these can be prepared in a short time, usually no more than 20 minutes, from our bulk food storage. And it fills them, they arent running back an hour later for a snack, like they would be if they just had some air puffed cold cereal.
namaste
I use dry oats straight out of the bag and toast them dry. This is more like a muesli than granola and has no added fat. For proportions: 10 cups oats, 2-3 cups nuts, toast in batches so it's not more than about an inch deep. When cool add 3 cups dried fruit and 1 cup brown sugar. When completely cooled I put it in big jars with those hinged lids and rubber gaskets (because things get really soggy in RI) with a scoop left in the jar. If you are going to try it you might want to do a smaller batch to see if you like it.
Sidonie-Millet casserole? Must have the recipe! I have a ton of millet but nothing to do with it. Please share!
Diane-Thank you so much. I'm going to try this one out for sure.
You guys are awesome! Thanks for all the great idea's.
We almost never eat cereal and it's always been that way. On weekends we'll eat eggs or pancakes. During the week, I make a lot of muffins from scratch, like you I bake all the bread so that's popular at our house too. Also, I do a lot of oatmeal, too, but I put out bowls of plain oatmeal and then put out a selection of homemade jams or fruit butters so everyone can have their own flavor.
~Erin
I’ve switched my cereal for homemade granola. Not only do you know exactly what’s in it, you also get to control sugar and fat levels. I usually do ratios of 3 cups oats, 1 cup nuts (whatever’s around), 1/3 cup “wet” sugar (molasses, honey, syrup…), some spices (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, whatever mood you’re in), a little oil, and bake at 275 degrees for about 45 minutes stirring every 15. And then add about 1 cup or so of dried fruit.
Diane’s idea seems really good. It sounds like it would taste just as good but require less work!
I've never been a cereal person, and I don't have kids, but my breakfast is usually one of the following:
~1 egg and a slice of Ezekiel bread
~organic yogurt and homemade granola
~tortilla spread with homemade peanut butter and rolled around a banana
~fruit smoothy made with frozen bananas and either almond or coconut milk as the base, along with protein powder and ground flax seeds, sometimes cocoa.
In the winter I live off of homemade oatmeal. Sometimes I fry it up in some butter as pancakes, too.
I confess to being lazy some mornings and buying a breakfast burrito from McD's...trying to stay away from that, though.
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