I crave cereal when I'm pregnant. I'm not proud of this fact, and I have no illusions that it's healthy for me. I do crave it though and boy do I eat my fair share of it. So I found myself at the local grocery store stocking up on name brand cereals for $1.38 a box this week. And I learned a horrifying fact. Cookie Crisp has 10g of sugar in a 3/4c serving while generic bran flakes and raisins has 18g of sugar in a 3/4c serving--almost double!! Sure, sure, there are other nutrients too, but when you're the parent who has to take care of small children all morning after they eat breakfast, sugar content is pretty much the most important thing on the label. Who wants to deal with a sugar high and subsequent sugar crash on top of the regular toddler craziness and the "if I run fast enough and scream loud enough, sleep can't catch me" crazies that come right before naptime?
The implications gave me a headache....could a bowl of miniature cookies really be better for my kids than a bowl of bran flakes with dried fruit? And lets not forget that they tend to pick out the sugar coated raisins and leave the bran flakes behind anyway. I should just give them oatmeal and fresh fruit, but frankly, that ain't gonna happen until several weeks after their sister arrives.
4 comments:
I soooo hear ya'! I crave cereal all summer long...like, crazy I COULD EAT THIS FOR THREE MEALS A DAY AND THEN A MIDNIGHT SNACK kinda cravings! We eat a lot of Corn Flakes (2g. of sugar) and Rice Krispies (3g. of sugar). As you said, I know these are not extraordinarily nutritious, but the sugar content is great. We top both of these with a sliced banana quite often...yummy...is it time for a snack??
Ooh...two of my favorites when I'm not pregnant! The least sugary I can do for now is honey nut cheerios (which is still 9g). I thought I was doing okay with the raisin bran, but obviously not...oh, and that's one I always add EXTRA sugar to also! After one morning of cookie crisp, I went to make myself a bowl of honey nut cheerios and Sedona was all, "momma!! We have little cookies! The cookies are VERRRRY yummy!" I bought two boxes, but for the rest (I got 8 boxes total) I stuck to slightly healthier things ;-)
Yep. We do the boring ole cereals here too. Plain Cheerios, Rice Krispies, Kix, Corn Flakes. The most we get is sometimes I cave and get them some Alphabets, mainly because Brenna is obsessed with letters. :)
We were doing just Rice Chex b/c it's completely gluten free - they even make it in a gluten free processing facility - and it's NOT $5/box. Now Honey Nut Chex is also gluten free. I was waaaayyy too excited when I saw that.
I've still not gotten Connor interested in eating cereal though. Which is frustrating cause those boxes of Van's frozen gluten free waffles are starting to add up, and I'm not going to have time during the school year to make anything more complicated for breakfast. I know I could make pancakes and freeze them myself, but again - not a lot of time to keep up with that either.
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