Clavin loves his Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs and my kids are fond of similar such breakfast treats, but the health and expense of children’s breakfast cereals is questionable and has bothered me for a while.
I will admit my lazy side was unwilling to fight the inevitable battle that would rage and quite frankly it was just too easy to pull the bag off the shelf, dump the cereal in a bowl and be done with breakfast.
Well, thanks to an extended snow storm back in December we made the huge jump to breakfasts without boxed(or bagged) cereal. We have had oatmeal, french toast, coffee cake, muffins all sorts of eggs and breakfast goodness. It was a little bit a hurdle the first week or so. But I found that getting breakfast cooked and on the table wasn’t as onerous a task as I thought it might be.
The kids like the new breakfast plan better than I imagined they would. Of course I have had a couple requests for cereal, but overall they seem to be happier. Now I am not deluding myself into thinking that pancakes have much more nutritional value than cold cereal – but since we are out of the cereal habit we are having more eggs, toast and juice and fewer chocolate frosted sugar bomb days — which feels like a great victory.
You can (as always) see more of the Works for me Wednesday ideas at Rocks in my Dryer.
Simply Catholic 
Good for you!
Hi Darcee~
Wow, you have been busy! See all the things I miss while I’m away? 🙂
We ‘dumped’ cereal, oh, I don’t remember how long ago now. Maybe a year, year and a half ago? I can honestly say that the boys don’t ask for it, and I don’t mind making breakfast each and every morning, either. The expense just got to be too great to justify, and I’ll be honest – it was laziness on my part that I didn’t do it earlier. My ‘lazy’ breakfast now is homemade muffins and fruit; in fact, just this morning I put some cranberry muffins in the oven after hubby left but before boys got up, so that breakfast was ready when they were. Shamefully I must admit that it really doesn’t take much longer to make a hot breakfast than it did a cold. However, here in the summer when the temps hit 115, cereal is much preferred to hot food, so I make homemade granola and the boys pour milk and fresh fruit over it. I don’t know if it’s much cheaper, but because I always have the ingredients on hand, we never run out. Hubby puts it over his yogurt with berries, and life keeps on turning. *grin* Probably way more than you cared to know, but I’m chatty today as my ‘puter is fixed and life is returning to its slower pace and I’m caught up on laundry. Does it get any better than that? 🙂
Okay, I’ll let you go now. Have a great day, and great job on the First Communion dress! I’m not sure how you came up with the courage to cut into your wedding dress, but my hat is off to you for it. I can’t wait to see the new dress.
God Bless!
Shani
Actually, you’d be surprised that pancakes are that much more nutritious. The kinds of things they have to do to the grains to make them into those puffed things are not just not good for you, they are actually bad for you. If you make pancakes from flour and eggs and milk and such, you’re already two steps ahead. If you include some whole grain flour in there, that’s an extra boost.
We eat hot cereals like steel cut oats or rolled oats or cracked wheat, sometimes we eat grits. We also eat lots of eggs, which are quick, nutritious and full of protein. I do make homemade granola (in my crockpot) and we eat that for cold cereal, but mostly we eat it with plain yogurt and a drizzle of honey or yogurt we flavor with jam. Yogurt and jams are easy to make, too, and much cheaper than store bought.
We save cereal for a “special treat” once every few months or so. Our normal breakfast fare is toast (Ezekiel bread) or oatmeal, and fruit. Smoothies too when the weather is warmer.
Growing up, my mom basically ALWAYS made breakfast. We had cereal maybe once/ week or less. But I have fond memories of getting up every morning to a hot breakfast – scrambled eggs, french toast, oatmeal, cream of wheat, pancakes, oven pancakes, cheese toast, etc. It was great – I stayed full all morning. I eat more cereal these days, but recently I’ve been making a big pot of steel cut oats then eating them for three or four days in row.
We don’t buy cereal for K-. I admit that she’s not a jump out of bed and eat girl, so I buy her Nutri Grain bars. On the weekends where she has more time to get her appetite going, she’s more for eggs and toast. Sometimes pancakes, but we were never into buying sugar cereal. We buy the boring stuff– Special K, Cheerios, Rice Krispies. No sugar bombs.
We do the same. 🙂 I’ve found it less expensive and more nutritional to just do homemade breakfast.