Rusty --that is too funny about the pilaf . I have to stay away from cold cereals. I have few things that I pig out on, but bowls of cereal is one. I have been bringing the Kashi Good Friends to work as a 1 point snack to snack on all day but I have to say I'm not thrilled with it. I'll have to try the Go-lean.
Crunch crunch! Yeah the pilaf is MUCH better cooked! LOL
I find the Good Friends pretty blah - but the Cinna-Raisin Crunch is really tasty - makes a good snack food by the handful.
I make up a snack jar (used to be full of chocolate covered raisins) for BoxerBob but I find I dip into it sometimes, too, when I need a safe treat. Mostly Frosted Mini-Wheats (generic), animal crackers, vanilla wafers, raisins and broken graham crackers. All pretty low-fat and if you add the Cinna-Raisin Crunch to it you have lots of fiber, too.
I have to take a sandwich size baggy of it to control my munching, though!
Hi everyone!
I don't think this has been mentioned yet, but my absolute fave is Special K Red Berries. YUM!
2 points for 1 cup.....even my husband loves it!
Ah cereal...nature's perfect food!
Love Cheerios, and occassionally Grape Nuts, which is very good when warmed up in the micro for about a minute. (but then that wouldn't be COLD cereal would it? )
I make a cereal treat for movie snacking - and if you don't eat a pound of it you're saving a lot of fat (over chips) and adding fiber to your diet. I use frosted mini-wheats (shredded wheat), broken lofat graham crackers, a handful of vanilla wafers, a handful of raisins, and animal crackers.
I found another great addition a couple weeks ago - Fruitibix. They look like goat food but they taste great. They are "crunchy mini Weetabix whole wheat cereal with currants, hazelnuts and almonds." A cup is only 200 calories and only 2 g of fat. About the size of a domino - they look like bite-size granola bars. They'd be great to pack for a snack in a baggy.
I also discovered another cereal to mix into my yogurt. The Little Debbie people put out a brand called Sunbelt Snacks and Cereals. Their Granola cereals are good - with lots of raisin, dates and almonds, and real berries. 7 g of fat - but then you don't need to eat much to add some fiber to your yogurt. Walmart carries them and it's cheap - $1.99 for a one pound box. Four grains, too - oats, wheat, barley and rice.
Last edited by Rusty*Rusty; 01-07-2003 at 10:48 AM.
Well...personally (probably coming from my experience with BFL and weight training nutrition) I don't find very many cold cereals to be 'healthy' - with the exception of All-Bran and Fiber One.
Most of them are pretty high in sugar and very low in fiber (GrapeNuts included in this unfortunately) = empty calories.
Old fashioned oatmeal is a MUCH better choice and is actually quite yummy!
At the BFL/Bodybuilding forum, I posted a really great article called "Foods that Make you Look Great Nekkid" today...this was listed under "The Bad Stuff":
Quote:
Flavored Oatmeal — Go to your pantry right now and get out your oatmeal. If you took out a colorful box full of little kiddy packets of peaches ‘n cream oatmeal, do yourself a favor and kick that --- to the curb! As stated above, we think oatmeal is one the best carb sources for bodybuilders, but the flavored, prepackaged variety sucks.
Look at the ingredients, which are listed in order of quantity. Sugar is usually the second ingredient in these girly oatmeal packets. Then you have other crap like salt, hydrogenated vegetable oils, maltodextrin, and partially hydrogenated soybean oil.
To top it off, the oats used in flavored oatmeal are usually more finely ground than healthy, old fashioned oatmeal. This means the GI could be higher based on the extra processing. The list of ugly ingredients goes on and varies a little with flavoring, but the lesson is simple: don’t eat this stuff if you want to look good nekid.
White Bread, Bagels and Rice Cakes — It’s hard to believe, but back in the 80s and early 90s, diet "experts" told people to eat as much of this stuff as they wanted. Since rice cakes are fat free, you can’t get fat, right? Wrong! Now the country is full of overweight diabetics. Coincidence? I don’t think so!
One representative of the Glycemic Research Institute even stated that eating a plain rice cake stimulated fat storage like ten bowls of sugar. Bagels aren’t quite as bad but are best avoided. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re eating healthy by consuming these things.
Most Breakfast Cereals — To us, cold breakfast cereals, even many of the brands touted as "healthy," are pure physique killers. Cereal is breakfast candy, nothing more, nothing less. In fact, corn flakes have a GI rating even worse than white bread! And how about these cereals that give you "energy", like Grape Nuts? Yep, at 47 carbs per teeny tiny serving (and what bodybuilder would eat one serving anyway?), most people would be in an insulin-induced coma by lunch.
All that said, there are a couple of good cereals out there, but not many. All Bran and Fiber One make decent oatmeal replacements, just eat some protein with them. All Bran Extra Fiber only has 50 calories a serving and 13 grams of fiber, almost four times as much as oatmeal!
Okay, okay. I know what you're gonna say - "I'm not a bodybuilder, I just want to lose fat". No matter - the best thing you can do if you're trying to lose weight is to cut out as much sugar as possible and when you eat carbohydrates, stick to the complex/unprocessed ones whenever possible...
I like what Pam Brown says regarding sugar: "Sugar should be avoided. Sugar spikes your body’s insulin level and puts your body into “fat storage” mode. Sugar creates cravings for more sugar." So true!
Don't get me wrong - I was RAISED on cold cereal (Chex, Special K, Corn Flakes) but they are Free Day fare for me now (eliminating cold cereal (and other processed carbs) from my daily fare and saving it for a once-in-awhile treat was a MAJOR KEY of getting me from a size 10 to a size 4 over the last year and a half!).
Just my two cents here...I know that the cereal manufacturers like to tout their products as 'healthy eating' but remember, that's marketing...not necessarily the whole truth! Think about it - look at the portion size on the box. How many of you eat *just* the portion size and stay satisfied? Or (like I used to do and would still do if I kept cereal in the house!) do you eat a couple of large bowls, thinking 'it's okay, it's grains!' or 'it's better than having waffles'?
That is a very interesting article on flavored oatmeal.
I have a question re: oatmeal. I buy McCann's Irish Oatmeal in a box, not the tin. I do nuke it about a minute or two, so I assume what I use are quick cooking oats. Would I be better off using the kind you have to cook longer? Also, you mentioned Fiber One. When I make oatmeal in the morning I always add about 1/4 cup of Fiber One before I nuke it. As far as added sugar goes, I try to stay as far away from it as possible.
You mean the microwaveable McCann's? I've bought that too and it is yummy The tinned kind is yummy too but it takes FOREVER to cook...
The oatmeal I buy usually is either the Quaker Oats or store generic version of same, in the traditional round box. I like the taste of the "Old Fashioned" better than the "Quick" but nutritionally there's not any difference between the two. I think the Quick is cut differently so it cooks through faster.
Other things you can do with oatmeal is make what we at the BFL board call a "Pamcake" - it is pretty yummy!
Here's a recipe for y'all...
Pamcakes:
With a blender (I use a hand blender) blend together:
6 eggwhites
1/2 cup dry oatmeal
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Splenda to taste
Perhaps some cinnamon if you want it
Get a nonstick skillet smoking hot, then turn the heat down to a touch over medium (this is my stove - yours might be different). Spray with butter flavored Pam. Pour in the batter (it's going to be runny) and let cook - mine generally take about 5 minutes for the first side, then I flip and cook for another 3 minutes. Serve with sugar-free syrup (there are some good ones out there now).
Variations:
1) After the first side is partially cooked, drop some blueberries onto the pancake so they can bake in.
2) For a richer pancake, add a spoonful or so of fat-free or lowfat cottage cheese to the batter before blending.
3) Shannycakes: Reduce the oatmeal and add some cold, cooked sweet potato/yam to the batter. You can also try adding 1/2 banana or some pumpkin puree (stay away from the cans labeled "Pumpkin Pie Filling" as they have added ingredients).
Yummy yummy yummy! Who sez that healthy food has to taste yukky??
It is the microwaveable oatmeal I was talking about.
Thank you for the recipe. I copied and pasted it. It does sound YUMMY Can't wait to try them. I love sweet potatoes and that sounds great mixing it into pamcake batter. Also, maybe when you make the pamcakes with canned pumpkin, use a little pumpkin pie spice, unless you have already done that and it wasn't that good.
Thanks again,
Aleka
Yeppers - forgot to say to add the pie spice - it IS good! The sweet tater and punkin pamcakes are so sweet and tasty you don't NEED the sugar free syrup IMO!
OH and you can make a bunch of these ahead of time and freeze them (or so I've heard anyway).
. I have to stay away from cold cereals. I have few things that I pig out on, but bowls of cereal is one. I have been bringing the Kashi Good Friends to work as a 1 point snack to snack on all day but I have to say I'm not thrilled with it. I'll have to try the Go-lean.
)
Mrs. Jim,
