Non-nutritional Cereal

I have a GREAT book called 'Eat That, Not This' which cuts the calories in your diet just by choosing lower calorie alternatives to foods. In it, it tells me that Rice Krispies are a nutritional waste of space. And yet, there they are, on the shelves.

Now, I think cereal is a good thing. However, I'm sitting here watching my babies eating Frosties and thinking maybe they should be eating Cheerios or Weetabix...

So WYOO on cereal?!

Hello, Mine are allowed chocolate or sugar cereal on the weekend, not on schooldays,
However Doms loves rice krispies, Luckily K loves weetabix, bran flakes Just right etc etc.
lara is like me and can't eat when she's woken up so she normally has a brioche roll in the car on the way to school

But at least she eats some kind of breakfast, which is the important thing. I sometimes think that the fibre in their cereal is the only fibre they get all day which worries me!

Oh, if we had time to eat a Full English every morning, then I wouldn't need to worry! Porridge, followed by bacon, eggs and a fried slice...sorted for the day!

Lucy loves weetabix...a bit too much LOL

She has cornflakes , rice crispies or weetabix at nursery and some toast. At the weekend she will have Weetos (she tells us they are like Ted's - the dog) and snaffle my muesli - the raisin and pineapple bits.

It worries me how many children come to school without having had breakfast and some have had a packet of crisps or a chocolate bar!

H has fruit on the way to nursery (unless we are up super early then he has weetabix aswell) then at nursery he has toast or cereal as soon as he arrives and usually has cereal with his friends about half an hour later!!! Weekends he sometimes has my flakes and fruit (and I do mean MINE ... little monkey will swap bowls with me, but not eat them if I give them to him out right!!!) or he will have weetabix or toast and fruit (he loves fruit).

I have never let him try frosties or cocopops becasue he is only just two and 1) I think he has plenty of time to try this sort of thing when he is older and 2) I know I would eat far more of them than he would and that is NOT good!!! I have NO willpower, none at all!!!

jx

When my children were small I was very sensible and bought them "proper" cereal. However as they get older they wanted to try the sugared, chocolated, frosted pops and flakes and whatevers. That has filtered down to Youngest child now eating the sugared cereals at a far earlier age, simply because they are available in the cupboard.

As far as I am concerned,
1) I'd rather they eat anything for breakfast, even if it has added sugar
2) A bit of crap in anotherwise healthy diet is fine, and
3) My food "policy" is that nothing is banned. There are no "treats" or food that is better than another type of food. If nothing is forbidden, then nothing is seen as more desirable. (I have huge problems with my weight, because we were brought up to finish our plates and that treats were special). So, if my children want Cookie Crisp, fine, try a bowl. It's worked for us because - for example - Eldest daughter now prefers Special K with natural yoghurt to Frosties, and we routinely give away MOUNDS of Christmas, Easter and Halloween sweets. They just don't care enough about them to eat them because it's nothing special.

No food is banned in my house either. You can have sweets after dinner, as much or as little as you like. Mostly, they're self limiting. I'm a great believer in not treating them as treats too.

I has such a struggle to get Eldest to eat anything including breakfast that I will buy them, within reason, whatever cereal they want to eat. I have Honey Nut Cheerios, Frosted Flakes and Strawberry Mini-Wheats in there at the moment, as well as Weetabix, Branflakes and porridge. They're usually pretty good at making good breakfast decisions, even Eldest, these days (there was a time she would eat nothing but Coco Krispies until she realised just how rank they were compared to Coco Pops!).

The 'clean your plate' rule is in force in this house though I do it because, as I like to say, I have given them a nutritionally balanced meal of the correct portion size for their tummies. If they choose not to fill it with the food I have provided, they can't choose to fill it with the sweet things they want to fill it with! They understand that and I actually have three reasonably balanced eaters, diet-wise...despite the clean your plate rule!

I never knew that rice crispies where a nutritional waste of space, there is always a packet in the cupboard but the hardly ever get eaten. It the chocolate cover ones that go first ( not that they are any better) the the shreaddies and weetabix. DD2 usually has porridge and toast ( if she gets up on time) DS has weetabix or shreaddies and DD2 has weetabix and a banana (which she loves and I am sick of seeing). DD1 and DS go to breakfast club in school ( even when they have eaten at home) . As long as they are having something to eat before school I am not to bother about what cereal it is.