Breakfast Cereal Roundup
Let’s do some light reading before Part III of my saga is posted, eh? Which will be quite soon for those of you following along. (Thanks for following along, by the way!)
I’ve been pondering breakfast cereal a lot. I can’t drink milk anymore so I’m not eating cereal for breakfast. But I still have to buy it for my family.
The breakfast cereal aisle is always overwhelming. It’s rows and rows of boxes, a rainbow of choices. And every brand of cereal has a Raisin Bran and a Cheerio and a Fruity Loop of some sort, plus the generic options available. Reading the labels, I have found that the generic, cheaper brand of a cereal is healthier than the brand name (i.e., more fiber, less sugar).
Breakfast cereals can be deceiving. Raisin Bran has gotten less healthy over the past several years. It seems as though every time a new box design is issued, the raisins are coated in more sugar and the flakes are now coated in corn syrup. It’s to the point that Raisin Bran is too sweet to eat now…or at least it was before I stopped drinking milk.
Grape Nuts seems to be the same as it always was, but I find it hard to eat on one side of my mouth. Too crunchy. I loved Grape Nuts as a kid. But it’s not a cereal I could ever eat without milk. That would be like chewing on a handful of pebbles.
I have boycotted Froot Loops ever since they added green and purple years ago. Why do people always have to ruin a good thing? Not that Froot Loops were ever healthy, but I did like them every once in a while Back In The Day. Then they had to add those other colors…what, weren’t they colorful enough? Do children now require green to be part of the cereal spectrum? The other thing about Froot Loops is that dreadful spelling. Ugh, it hurts to type it out.
Kashi cereal for the most part tastes like tree bark and feels the same way going down. Hell, it even looks like twigs and pine cone bits. But now Kashi has all these other types of cereals…puffs, fruit cereals, etc. The whole point of eating that twiggy Kashi cereal was for the 420,967 grams of fiber you got in each bowl. If you check the label of their puffs though, they have less than 1 gram of fiber per serving. Not cool, Kashi. If I am spending my money on your spendy, twig-like cereal, even in puff format, I want my effin’ fiber.
Lucky Charms – my husband loves Lucky Charms. I can’t even buy them, because they would only last a day around here. I will admit that a bowl of Lucky Charms makes for a great dessert. I could never eat this kind of thing in the morning, though…I would crash like a train. And now the box claims a new “Marshmallow of the Month” in every box. Each month they add a newfangled, multicolored marshmallow to their already sugar-laden blend. This is terrible! What if I was a Lucky Charms addict, and I really liked the Marshmallow of the Month? I’d be hooked, only to have them take it away the next month and replace it with a lesser mallow. Not fair to their loyal subjects. This cereal is too risky for a sensitive type to experiment with.
Thanks for walking the breakfast aisle with me. I would love to hear what you eat for breakfast, or if you skip it. They say you aren’t supposed to skip breakfast. Some people prefer breakfast for dinner. Personally, I could eat Thai food in the morning, if it were available.
But for now, it’s coffee and toast for me.
Mother, Father, Sister, Brother 
I usually skip breakfast. I do like Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Cookie Crisp (though my mom hardly bought that one) but I’m finding the older I get, the more I’m drawn to healthy cereals with almonds and other nuts clusters.
Oatmeal eeevvvery day for me. Steel-cut oatmeal is actually a treat, that’s what my diet is like. I agree with schmode that Grape Nuts are wonderful in yogurt, if you let them sit for a little while and get a bit more mushy than pebbly. I also recommend half a package of silken tofu scrambled just like eggs, with a spoonful of red curry paste and topped with a crumbly cheese like feta or goat cheese. It’s yummy.
Why no more milk?
LOL. I worked with a guy who used to eat that Kashi cereal. It really does look like twigs. I used to tease him and ask why he always had a bowl of sticks and stones for breakfast. I like oatmeal (I cheat and uses the instant kind but the organic instant kind) or an english muffin with butter and jam, or a bowl of cheerios with a banana sliced up in it. I am using rice, nut, or oat milk these days rather than dairy though. And I love breakfast for dinner. That’s cuz I’m usually too lazy to make breakfast in the morning. I’m working on fixing that.
No breakfast for me. If I eat in the morning, then I have to eat all day.
i usually have oatmeal at school in the morning…but have been known to buy the mini-boxes o’ ceral at costco. i have been known to snarf a bowl of corn pops for dinner. and i remember when super golden crip was called SUGAR SMACKS. oh, the good ole’ days…
Waffles for me. Or eggs every now and then. I rarely eat cereal because I don’t drink milk. Especially cereal milk. *SHUDDER*
I stay away from dairy because it gums up my sinuses. It’s sad because I love cheeses. I like an egg white omelette made with zucchini, spinach, onions, pepper, tomatoes and srircha sauce. Breakfast of champions!
I’m not a breakfast person in general, and never have been. If I do eat something in the morning, it’s usually a piece of toast with a glass of apple juice. If I’m with family, though, I usually end up with a big, southern breakfast in my stomach: eggs, toast, bacon and grits.
Even if I did eat breakfast regularly, I doubt that cereal would be my breakfast of choice. There’s something about milk getting warm and cereal getting soggy that turns my stomach. On the rare occasion that I eat cereal, it’s usually dry and by the handful, and almost exclusively Cheerios. If I really feel like I need a sugar rush, I might indulge in some Lucky Charms.
That’s not to say that I don’t buy cereal. I make homemade Chex Mix often. I use Grape Nuts in my banana bread recipe. I crush Corn Flakes to use as a breading for chicken or fish.
I hear you about the Froot Loops. I boycotted M&Ms based on color, too, when they replaced tan with that awful blue.
We’re not cow’s milk drinkers either, but we do opt for rice milk which is really good on cereal. My mil swears by throwing Grape nuts kinda things into yogurt, but I haven’t tried it, I keep expecting them to taste like grapes and am ripped off at the flavour of wood!
I opt for Steel cut oats, they are super filling, but do take a long time to cook.
I like Special K’s with fruit or Frosted Mini Wheats(I usually buy the generic, “spooners”). I also like to eat Cream of Wheat or Oatmeal in the winter months. Coco Wheats are alright too. Every once in a while I have an occasional egg. They’re great scrambled with Churriso(Mexican Sausage) and rolled into a tortilla.
If I’m in a hurry, usually all the time, I just have coffee with International Delight fat free French Vanilla.