Better Breakfast Brigade
Thanks to my CFS/ME I’ve been learning just how important it is to keep our blood sugars balanced.
Feeding our children cereal, toast ( especially white bread) with jam, chocolate spread or marmalade or any other so-called breakfast option is doing them a disservice.
Eggy bread
I am tempted to say abusing them. Yes, strong words, but honestly we worry about them crossing roads, encountering drugs, stranger danger while “safe” at home we feed them the white poison of our age.
Thinking that the milk is protein is a salve: we are still giving them sugar, plain and simple, and if the milk’s not organic I’d avoid it, but that’s another story.
There’s virtually nothing good in cereal no matter what the packets might tell you. They only add all those vitamins because they processed it all out in the first place.
Supermarkets and marketeers dream up ever more “ tempting” breakfast options brain-washing us into believing that breakfast is about sugar laden processed carbohydrate, over packaged options upon which they make massive profits.
Sugar for breakfast means big blood sugar spike followed by a slump, producing irritable, tired cranky kids needing another sugar fix to get them through the day. Off they go at at break and lunch eating more fast food processed delights so repeating the cycle.
Spanish omelette
As the sugar levels spike their poor system has to send out extra insulin to bring the levels down and so it goes on up down up down. This unnatural long-term pattern can lead to diabetes, weight gain, and a host of other health problems. A recently launched film Called Hungry for Change explains all this and much more about what is wrong with our western diets and how to put it right, worth a watch.
AND it’s not just the sugar and sweeteners in cereal that create these reactions it’s any processed white carbohydrates we eat.
I’ve made the bold move of virtually never having cereal packets in our home, If it’s not there they can’t eat it. Occasionally I say yes, after all no point in making it the most alluring sought after thing going by a complete ban. I’m not totally mad, I hope.
I think we parents need to get our heads on straight and take a stand. Say no to feeding this stuff to our kids, stop buying it and PUT OURSELVES OUT a bit by organising better breakfasts.
Mum's cafe menu
I’ve made my MUMS CAFE MENU and here’s what we can do for breakfasts instead.
| Sandwiches | fish, cold meat, cheese, if they like a sandwich, why not for breakfast. |
| Sausages | try to get organic, preservative free ones though, and don’t eat too often. |
| Muesli | make it yourself and then you know what’s in there, try: oats, millet, buckwheat or rice flakes, add chopped nuts, seeds, and some dried fruit. |
| Eggs | scrambledpoached
boiled with soldiers omelette spanish omelette ( add fried onions and veg) eggy bread/ french toast ( bread soaked in bread then lightly fried)
|
| Shakes | milk or/and yogurt with fruit then try slowly introducing ground nuts or seeds, nut butter, tahini, to up the protein levels. |
| Yogurt | plain yogurt with fruit salad, flavoured yogurts often full of sugar and an expensive way to buy it. You can also easily make your own. |
| Porridge | again try adding some protein in the form of ground seeds and nuts or to really pack a protein punch, in my experience though this has to be done very slowly; they know! |
| Pancakes | Our Saturday morning treat, buckwheat flour pancakes, but you can use any type of flour, egg and milk, mix it all together and cook. Add yogurt, fresh fruit, berries are great for toppings or a little lemon juice with honey, maple syrup, or our current find, chocolate tahini. |
| Toast | Baked beans on toastCheese on toast
Toast with nut butters, sardines, hummus and sliced tomato or other favourite protein topping. |
For more tips on cooking eggs check out Seana’s blog The Mum’s Diet
AND not to be completely fascist, if accompanied by one of the above protein packed options.
Toast: with jam, marmalade etc
Cereal: err on the side of fibre rich, nutty, muesli types if possible.
Over the years we have had to do all the above gluten and dairy free substituting with gluten-free breads and flours soya, rice or nut milks and yogurt, so I know it’s possible.
Sometimes I also use an organic protein powder to up protein levels. As with ground nuts, seeds and tahini introduce it slowly 1/2 a teaspoon at a time.
Buckwheat pancakes with strawberries and chocolate tahini
ALWAYS THINK PROTEIN FIRST
MairiStones
Fantastic post Mairi – thank you for sharing. I too feel the same way about sugar (and yes, hungry for Change, is a wonderful film that should be shown to all parents and in all schools).
Anyway, my daughter LOVES refined sugar – we kept her off it until she was about 6; I thought I’d be able to ‘train’ her palate in this way, but it seemed more that ‘forbidden fruits’ syndrome kicked in.
The ‘rule’ now is that at home we do without the white stuff – I cook with honey, am experimenting with xylitol and have used fructose and agave, though now I’m not so sure about those – sigh.
WHen DD goes out she is free to eat as she chooses. So she gets a little of what she fancies when out with grandma or having sleepovers at friend’s houses.
I also work as a nutritional therapist and allergy therapist so have seen first hand the terrible effects refined sugar can have on the body-mind-emotions.
Hmmm, I could get very outspoken, but I’ll stay quiet for now. Good to meet you; I have a feeling we share a lot of similar thoughts on things!
Warm wishes
Ah! Mrs Green, how lovely to meet you. I’m afraid I’ve given in to being outspoken recently, just been quiet for too long. I too tried to steer my two away from sugar, but as soon as they had it it seemed all was lost. We are currently sailing in the med coming to the end of a year away where I have had more “control” over thier diets. I suspect I will be despairing once they re-enter mainstream school and all that teens stuff back home. I just hope discussing it and informing will be going in somewhere.
I’ve been learning such a lot about nutrition through my recovery from CFS, the more I learn the more I am outraged by what is taken as a “normal” diet.
Anyway I will go and take a look at your blog. X
I must speak up in defence of All-Bran, which I had for my breakfast this morning layered with yoghurt and blueberries. Fantastic!!!
Just a thought, according to the GI books here, buckwheat pancakes have a really high GI so unless you eat them with plenty of protein they’ll produce the sugar spike thinggy too.
BUT… thanks for some great breakfast suggestions. Always good to try some new things. Little Madame loves toast and jam, but we do use this super dense rye bread which has 13g of protein in two slices so quite good for the wee ones.
Have taken your suggestion of adding a bit of protein powder to J’s smoothie, but just a tiny bit for now. I also have some Inca Inchi protein powder from http://www.changinghabits.com.au./ It has a great nutty flavour and is good in smoothies etc for me.
Whilst admitting that I do love choccie for breakfast on the odd occasion, I’ll go for the Better Breakfast Brigade!
Seana, I always forget about All-bran because of spending so many years gluten-free. I still bet it’s got added sugar though!
re the pancakes, I’m disappointed if that’s true, I don’t know all these facts and figures, go on my gut instinct and limited knowledge I’m afraid. Good to have folks like you around who can provide the facts, more please. I usually lather mine with nut butter so most likely ok, but the chocolate tahini, well……
My not so little Madame is a hard one to please for breakfast, but she will eat chickpeas and did this morning covered in mint sauce, so no protein problems there.
We have hot chocolate with breakfast sometimes, and this is where an absolute miracle has occurred. I have always given them soya milk mixed with straight cocoa powder, no sugar nothing, nada, except some spices maybe. When they were little they didn’t know any different, but even now, after having full on hot chocolates with milk, cream and marshmallows, they drink mine, do you think they are humouring me? X
Here is a poster from the staffroom of one of the schools I teach in:
‘Children’s memory, problem-solving abilities and reactions times are all adversely affected by the lack of, or the wrong sort of, breakfast’
…and the scariest one is that so many children come to school having eaten nothing!
Love and hugs, C x x
They need to send the poster home! Poor kids. COuldn’t the school “do” breakfast? X
I know! They could put it on the parents noticeboard, but they are probably aware that parents would see it as a critisism and they are so scared of that.Maybe workshops for parents and kids together to learn about healthy brekkies.I might try that, who knows!Mind you, my three grew up on Weetabix and cheese on toast and often bananas on porridge and they seem fine and dandy!
Your breakfasts sound better than some, and remind me that I over fret about my two who on the whole eat amazingly well, “even salad” as was pointed out at lunch time. X