Hiya! Here’s hoping you had a smashing weekend. Mine was filled with friends, babies, reading, lots of play/exercise along the beautiful Florida coast and, of course, good grub.
During the friendfest, one of my nearest and dearest — a woman who is interested in changing her diet for the better — asked me the following:
Q: Would Healthy Holly eat cereal for breakfast?
A: In general, Healthy Holly Would NOT.
Egads! Why the heck not?
The Short Answer:
Cereal is not necessarily bad for you per se; it’s just not the greatest choice to reach for on a daily basis. On the Good-Better-Best scale, it ranks just below Good. It usually contains sugar and, sometimes, other less desirable additives. Even when it’s touted as “healthy” or “sugar-free,” it’s often a highly processed food that, via the huffing and the puffing and the reshaping and whatnot, can denature the grains it contains. (The photo above, by the way, shows some yummy, non-sugary homemade granola. It’s still not the greatest choice for breakfast, although it does offer good fiber if you use the right grains.)
Now, if I’m staying at a hotel where my breakfast choices are cereal vs. some factory-farmed breakfast meat that’s been pumped full of growth hormones, antibiotics and poor-quality feed, I’ll definitely elect the cereal; but on a daily basis, it behooves a sound body to choose less-processed foods.
My friend was a bit agog at this answer; she’s been eating an organic, low-sugar (but highly processed) cereal for years and had no idea what else to eat in the morning. I told her not to throw out her cereal box; eat the cereal once or twice a week, but consider it a treat.
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I never usually want cereal for breakfast! And since having to go gluten-free, and the few gluten-free cereals out there are prohibitively expensive, I seek other breakfast foods. Usually during the week I’ll have a green smoothie (spinach, parsley, mint, chia seeds, maybe a bit of coconut milk, and a bit of fruit) and a handful of nuts, or a hard-boiled egg (free-range – I usually get eggs from a farm down the street from me!). On a rare occasion, I’ll toast up a slice of gluten-free (homemade, packed with quinoa and sorghum flours) bread and slather a bit of almond butter on it, and eat a banana alongside. How does that rank? Good? Better? Best?
Holly, I’m really interested in your opinion of sprouted grain cereals like Ezekiel Cereal?
well, I like shredded wheat with frozen blueberries in the mornings; it’s quick, it’s good for me (roughage, anti-oxidants, etc.) and it tastes good.
I know this is true. I’ve managed to avoid it for awhile now, but it’s much harder to get the kids to eat something better. Specifically my eleven y/o who is super groggy in the morning and I know really NEEDS protein, but won’t go near eggs until lunch time. Any great ideas for her? I’ve been thinking about trying homemade granola bars with pb and nuts.
Great ideas, Kathryn! I’ll put some more kid-friendly ones in My Six(teen) Impossible Things for Breakfast.