Cereal Killer?

So, my last post yielded interesting results. The post was simply a photo diary of what I ate that day. It obviously hit a sweet spot. The page view rate on that post was almost 5x higher than on any other post I've published. I can see that's of interest to folks, so I'll be doing that more often. For today though, I want to talk about something several of my friends have asked me about lately.

"What do you think of cereal?" is the question. The answer, in a word - not much (OK that's two words)! I'm not a big fan of cereal and it's definitely not my first (or second, or third) choice of breakfast picks for me or my family. Why? Well, for several reasons. First, most cereals on the shelf contain gluten - first offense. The second gnarly offense is the sugar content. Most cereals are VERY low in nutrition and are basically empty sugar calories. Even the so-called "healthy" cereals like Kashi are high in sugar. Third thing I don't love about cereal is that it's really hard to maintain portion control. I feel pretty strongly that it can be a trigger food for many people (myself included). It easily lends itself to handful after handful dry (you can quickly consume two or three portions and LOTS of calories).

Now, that said, my son is like any other kid and sometimes he just wants cereal. In an effort NOT to drive him away from our family's style of eating, I have come up with a way to feel OK about offering him cereal once a week or so. Here's how I roll with cereal.....

I do a good+crap approach to cereal.

In a bowl I start with a good portion of quinoa puffs. (I buy bags of puffed quinoa on Amazon.com. Funny story - I bought a "bag" of puffed quinoa and this is what showed up at my door! Now THAT'S a bag of cereal!)

To that I add Perky's Crunchy Flax. It's got a nice hearty texture, good taste and the stat's on it are pretty good.

Then, at the end I add a small (I mean small) amount of some kind of "crappy" sugar cereal my kids like. The sugar cereal of choice around here is Leapin' Lemurs (these are sugary enough that I use them for dessert. Anything suitable for a sugary dessert isn't a good candidate for breakfast, a bowl of these babies alone will leave you and your kids feelin' like the crap they're made of!). Mix it all together.

To the cereal mixture, I add about a cup (or so) of unsweetened almond milk whisked together with half to 3/4 of a scoop of protein powder (I use a vegan vanilla) and pour that over the cereal. Then add some kind of fruit, preferably berries, but I've also used banana, peaches, even mango.

Now we have more of a breakfast worthy meal and less of a cereal killer. What do you think of cereal for breakfast???