Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Our Quest to a Healthier Breakfast

Does this look familiar? Bowls of cereal this large are common in our home. With the massive amounts of cereal being consumed, you would think the kids could make it till noon before they eat again. Not so, by 9:30 the kids are claiming they are starving and must have a snack. Healthy snack around our house is at 10:30 and I endure listening to whining for an hour.

I refuse to buy 'colorful' cereal, even though my husband proved to me the other cereals have just as much sugar. Colorful for some reason just seems like it is less healthy, plus, have you ever changed a diaper after a child has eaten Fruity Pebbles? Turquoise is not something you should see in a diaper.

Sunday night I announced to the kids that breakfast would be served at 7:30, and I would begin preparing at 7:15, and everyone was invited to help..... cereal would not be provided. This did not go over well. I decided I better hide the cereal in case the kids decided to sneak some cereal before I woke up.


7:15 rolled around and Mason set the table, Reece boiled the eggs, and Maya worked on her beauty sleep. I got the rest of breakfast prepared. We all sat down together, said a prayer, and had a breakfast feast consisting of:

-Hard boiled eggs
-Oatmeal
-Yogurt
-Organic granola
-Apples
-Oranges
-Strawberries
-Milk

As we were sitting around the table, Maya asked Reece if he liked oatmeal, he answered by saying, "I don't like oatmeal, I LOVE oatmeal!" Ahhhh, music to my ears, someone said something other than a complaint at the table!!! We talked about what our day would consist of, then we all cleared the table together and cleaned up the kitchen. Not only did we have a healthy breakfast together, but we talked about our day, and had a quiet relaxed moment together before our busy day started.

Now, here is the best part, 9:30 rolled around and there were no requests for food. 10:30 came and went, still no requests for healthy snack. At 11:30 the kids started migrating to the kitchen asking for something to eat. It was a success!!! They actually stayed full until lunch time.

This morning Michael was able to join us for breakfast, oh what fun! We are excited to experiment with some other recipes such as whole wheat pancakes, bran muffins, omelets etc.

If you have any great egg recipes, you can enter the Egg Recipe Contest on my Backyard Farming Blog

11 comments:

Kristi said...

Okay I feel inspired. The thing is, when we did weight watchers I learned that all of the oatmeal cereals etc had more calories than the sugar cereals. So we started eating sugar cereals to loose weight, weird I know, but it worked.

I know caloric content isn't everything though. So here is a great recipe for whole wheat pancakes. I like it because you can use your food storage wheat and you don't have to have a grinder... I actually do it a little different, I use 1 c of water and 1/4 C dry milk (gotta use it somewhere), and you add the baking soda at the very end and just pulse it three times or something. I couldn't find the actual recipe but this is close enough. Good luck. You're an inspiration :)

1 cup fat free milk
1 cup whole wheat/ not the flour but the whole grain
2 lrg eggs
2 tbsp veg oil
2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp sugar or honey
1/2 tsp salt


Directions
Put milk and wheat in the blender. Blend on highest speed for 4 to 5 minutes or until batter is smooth. Add eggs, oil, baking powder, sugar, salt and blend on low. cook on hot griddle.
*For waffles add 1 tbsp more of wheat and increase oil to 4 tbsp

Unknown said...

I can see that oatmeal would have more calories than sugar cereal, when compared serving to serving. We are eating the old fashion oats, not packaged oatmeal, and when you take into consideration that my kids were eating 8 servings of sugar cereal compared to one serving of oatmeal, and getting full off of it, it is the way to go for us. That is kind of funny though that for WW you got to eat sugar cereal. Thanks for the recipe! I'm going to try it out.

m. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
m. said...

I personally love this recipe for oatmeal pancakes. There is no sugar in the recipe so I don't feel so guilty about topping it with some pure maple syrup. It is also fun to make your own oat flour. They are really moist & good. Flynn loves them too!

Brandi said...

Breakfast is such an important meal. I was always inspired by my neighbor while I was growing up. She would cook huge elaborate breakfasts for her kids every morning before school. They had fruit and smoothies and pancakes and...really everything! I, on the other hand got a glass of Carnation Instant Breakfast and then at school took a trip to the vending machine for a candy bar. I vowed that my children would always get a good start to the day and have a nice healthy breakfast. We still have sugar cereal on occasion, but always with a banana or strawberries.

My whole wheat pancake/waffle recipe is similar to Krisit's up there. Just one pancake fills me up until lunch. And you know it's healthy! I have a couple more whole wheat recipes on my recipe blog for Whole Wheat crepes and the pancake recipe. Try them and let me know what you think.

Unknown said...

Oh Brandi, I can't wait to try your recipes. I will go check out your blog, it is so great.

Thanks Megh for the oatmeal pancake recipe, after 3 days of oatmeal, I'm already tired of it, I'm ready for some variation.

megan said...

On my oatmeal I like to put walnuts, raisins, real maple syrup, and either soy milk or skim milk. I also add less water to my oatmeal so it's less like glue and more solid. I then let it stay in smaller clumps in the bowl. And I don't care about the calories - how can that breakfast not be good for you? And I stay full for a long time. They also say if you start your day with some protein your brain works a lot better. I think that's true. So adding some boiled eggs is probably the perfect fit. Right now though I eat come whole grain - meaning really whole grain with like 5 grams of fiber per slice - with peanut butter on it and a glass of orange juice. That lasts me until lunch when cereal last me like an hour. And cereal gets me "all gassy and bloated".

p.s. Have you heard of the girl who takes a beautiful picture of her breakfast every day and puts in on her blog?

megan said...

bad grammar on that one - oh well.

Amber said...

We love pumpkin pancakes. Just add 1-2 tablespoons of pumpkin puree to any recipe- it's a great way to sneak veggies into your kids' breakfast. And i'm not a fan of wheat pancakes, but I add flaxseed to my buttermilk recipe.

Holly said...

Wow what a good mom. My son get a frozen waffle or cheerios and considers himself lucky ;-)

I do have a great egg recipe though...It uses a whole dozen.

Unknown said...

Holly, I can't wait to try your egg recipe.

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