Cereal?
 

I would like to know if anyone can help me out. I would like to find a healthier cereal for my son. He's 9 so it has to be something HE will think is tasty. I refuse to buy any kind that has marshmellows in it, but still yet I find most of the ones he likes is loaded with sugar. We've tried a few of the "whole grain" versions of his regualr ones and he doesnt care for them. Also a lower sugar version of pancakes? I get the light syrup already, he doesnt like the sugar free, but if anyone knows of a pancake mix or how to make a mix that is low in sugar that would be fantastic. May you have a fantastic motivated day...
Wishing us thinner days,
Wendy

My kids actually liked hot cereal .... oatmeal and 'creamy' wheat :) ... they liked it with applesauce. How about French Toast?

He LOVES french toast, but not everyday. And he wont come within 10 feet of oatmeal or cream of wheat. He's kind of picky, it drives me crazy. Anyway thanks a bunch for the response, and i'll try making more french toast for him.
Take care,
Wendy

Or eggs and toast?

I grew up detesting cereal (apart from porridge), and only started eating it last year. I've found I really like Nature's Path Optimum Slim (hate the name though :p). It's a bit sweeter than your average "healthy" cereal, so your son may actually eat it. :halffull:

The NI per serving:

• 190 kcals
• Fat--2.5 g (0.4 g saturated)
• Fibre--11 g
• Protein--10 g
• Sugar--7 g

What about Kashi GoLEAN Crunch?
It's a bit pricy, but high in fiber and protein and I think that it's pretty sweet.

Whole Grain Cheerios are sweet (go figure! :shrug: ) which kinda put me off of them, but your son might like them.

Have you tried Ilene's pancakes? They're 1/3 cup each of oatmeal, cottage cheese and egg white. Mix in a blender so it's the right consistency and cook as normal pancakes. We like ours fairly thin, so I add water too. They aren't sweet at all (I suppose you could add Splenda if you like sweeter pancakes) but you'd never know what they're made of either. I put unsweetened applesauce on mine, but my DH treats them as "normal" and adds syrup or yogurt and fruit to the top of his. :)

Thank you all so much for these great Ideas. I will have to try some of those. I found a great recipe yesterday actually that uses oatmeal and egg whites and cinnamon and splenda for pancakes. I'm definately going to try them if they are good I will be sure to post them on my recipe website for sure.
Wishing us thinner days,
Wendy

Pancakes--I use Arrowhead Mills organic buckwheat mix; I add 1 tbsp. of blackstrap molasses as sweetener.

Cereals--Life, Shredded Oats (fairly sweet), Puffins, Raising Bran. All of these are decent amounts of fiber but not too "hard core". My 13 y.o. thinks they are fine.

Other option--frozen waffle with peanut butter and sliced banana--very filling and gives you a fruit serving to start the day.

I get my daughters Clifford Crunch from Cascadian Farms. It has 6 grams of sugar & 5 grams of fiber. It tastes, to me, like Lucky Charms without the marshmallows. It helps that my girls are nuts about Clifford. ;)

This receipe works for waffles or pancakes..


1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup milk
1 egg
2 tbs canola oil
1 tsp baking powder
dash of salt

you can also add sweetner, or fruit to this.. cinnamon, vanilla, sometimes i even add a bit of uncooked oatmeal..

this makes 4 waffles

I liked kix when I was younger. Can't tell you anything about them offhand but I know the commercials about both kids and adults liking them. What about granola cereals? They are usually great tasting. Higher in calories/fat but I don't know if that would be a problem for your son.

The new Cheerios with yogurt coating might taste good to him. Don't tell him they're yogurt flavored, hide the box. Maybe he'll just think they are like frosted cereal, like Cap'n Crunch or Frosted Flakes.

The national brands that sell like frosted flakes, ect..look for the ones that are made with like 75% less sugar, or something like that, they are STILL PLENTY SWEET! I prefer those to the FULL sugar version. Also, my kids like KIX, and how about Toast, Peanut Butter and a glass of Juice? That is my daughters all time stand by breaskfast.

I was going to mention those. I have a big sweet tooth (just like a little kid's!) and I absolutely love the strawberry ones. Yum.

I like the Nature's Path Optimum Slim better than the golean.. only because it why easier to eat and do't get lock jaw from it lol My son likes the Yogart cheerios

i sometimes mix a few kinds of cereal together, get the ones with the marshmallows and mix it half and half with cherrios or something like that. gradually increase the amount of cherrios till there is very little junky cereal in the mix!

I love the new bite sized shredded wheat that comes in vanilla flavor- I find myself grabbing a few of those when I have a craving for a cookie or something sweet. I am not a cereal person, and don't even try to get me to eat hot cereal. At 34 years old, I still can't eat cereal with milk on it, but give me a carton of whipped yogurt with my cereal and I love it...I just hate soggy cereal & I'm a very slow eater.

Also, if you are making your own pancakes or any just about any bakegoods, you can substitute part of the regular flour with oat flour. You take dry oats (quick cook or traditional) and process them until they look flour like. I love adding it to breads, scones, etc. Also, I wonder if he would like a healthy scone? I have a few recipes I've played around with that are easy to make- think mixing up a cake mix difficulty- and they stay fresh for several days...longer if you keep them in the fridge.

This is what my 2 year old LOVES! You can get it at Costco for a great price. Just have to make sure you like it first before buying bulk.

Honey nut cheerios is a good bet. I always liked those as a kid. Or Cinnamon Life cereal.

Be careful with the "healthier" cereals. Some of them are just as bad, if not worse than the ones that LOOK like they would be loaded. You can also find 2 similar brands and mix the non sugary and the sugary. Wean him that way. For me, with all the vitamins they add to cereal and the milk they drink with it, I'm okay with any kind.

HA! I used to hate cereals unless they were verrrrrrry sugary. Very. But one thing i actually did like when i was little was Rasin bran! The rasins were really great - true. I would pick them out and eat them first and then sneer at the soggy leftovers sometimes, but usually I was good ;) Also, porrage with lots of rasins or other dried fruits to make it sweet (and some brown sugar)... Cream of wheat with the taste covered by cinnamon and cooked apples. WOo. That rocked. Anyway i was one of the "sisters bland" as my dad used to call me and my sister ;) We were very picky children.

Also, maybe for breakfast you could try something besides cereal? Fruit salads are good, and someone mentioned french toast. Baked apples and cinnemon (no sugar) is nice too for breakfasts (you dont always have to make it the morning of either!). Muffins are also good - lately ive been enjoying bran muffins a lot, but things like blueberry muffins are nice. Maybe apple sauce made from scratch (i like cooked apples.. what can i say?)
Also, on another note, if you ever make cookies ive encountered quite a few people who use applesauce instead of shortening - and the cookies taste just the same if not better - though they're usually a little more moist - which is nice. You'd have to look up the amout of sauce to substitute for shortening but it works really well - i plan on doing it next time i bake!
good luck! I remember being a picky kid, and remember! If he's really that hungry he'll eat it anyway! *laughs*

I agree.

I posted this elsewhere but if sugar is your concern, look very closely. My Cookie Crisp is better for me than my Nature's Path Organic FlaxPlus Raisin Bran.

Cookie Crisp = 1 cup has 120 calories, 1.5g of fat, 170mg of sodium, and 13g of sugar

Nature's Path = 3/4 cup has 180 calories, 2.5g of fat, 280mg of sodium, and 16g of sugar.

I would rather my kids have the Cookie Crisp.

My son, unfortunately, loves the sugary cereals. But I always look at the nutrition label and at least try and pick the lesser of the evils. I recently bought him the Chocolately Peanut Butter Crunch (Cap'n Crunch stuff) and it has 9 grams of sugar per serving. Not great, but not bad compared to others I looked at that had almost as much as 20 grams of sugar :no:

As a kid, I was a Cheerios kid all the way. Just as an aside, did General Mills change the recipe? The Cheerios of today don't seem quite as hearty as they did *cough*30 or so*cough* years ago...

Back on track...

One of the newer cold cereals I've discovered is Kashi Autumn Wheat. It's sort of a mini-shredded-wheat cereal. It's sweet enough right out of the box without adding any extras. Yet it's not sugary-sweet, like a frosted cereal.

The ingredients are: Organic Whole Grain Wheat, Organic Evaporated Cane Juice (I'm assuming that's a code word for sugar) and Natural Flavor (whatever that is).

Nutritional info: Serving size = 1 cup. Calories = 190. 1g fat. Potassium = 180mg. Sodium = 0 (:cheer:). Total carbs = 45 (6 Dietary carbs; 1 soluable, 5 nonsoluable). Sugar = 7g. Protein = 5g.

It's quite tasty, very filling and has a nice texture. Not too crunchy, doesn't go soggy and limp too fast.

If I were a kid, I think I'd like it.

I'm not sure about the nutrition stuff, but I love the 75% less sugar cinnamon toast crunch. I can't tell the difference. Too bad it is impossible to find around here :(

Well, I don't have a KID technically...but my husband (who is a cold cereal loving kid at heart!) LOVES Puffins...specifically Peanut Butter Puffins, which contain a mere 6g of sugar per serving. Personally I like just the 'original' Puffins which IMO are plenty sweet on their own...

Other options - Go Lean Crunch! has a bit more sugar (13g) than Puffins, but can be a good option mixed with lite yogurt for a sweet snack.

Quaker Crunchy Corn Bran - similar to Puffins, but I think the Quaker Corn Bran has more fiber (I don't have the nutrition info in front of me to check).

Kix - I've never actually tried Kix myself, for some reason my mom never bought it. Funny - my mom rarely bought the 'kid' cereals back when we were growing up - the ones I remember eating regularly as a child were Cheerios, Shredded Wheat, Special K, Corn Flakes and Rice Krispies. Occasionally (usually when there was an Archies record on the back of the box...anyone else remember those) we'd get something like Alpha-Bits or Honey Comb, but that was pretty rare (and I recall they weren't as sweet as the sugary cereals nowadays).

I too have a cold cereal loving kid at heart! He really likes Frosted Mini-Wheats. But we both like original Puffins, and when I saw the peanut butter ones I was very excited. I love peanut butter, but ewwww, we both hated the peanut butter Puffins - ended up throwing them out! I buy the original whenever I find it on sale... But cheerios are my day-to-day staple.

I can tell you from experience this works great! IMO Any recipe or mix that calls for shortening or oil turns out better when you substitute applesause 1-1.

Could I get that recipe for the pancakes? That sounds awesome. Thanks. Blyn:^:

Our regulars are Frosted Mini Wheats, Cheerios, or Honey Nut Cheerios