What's in YOUR bowl?

I never analyzed why I choose the foods that I do for children. It's common knowledge that "kid" cereals are plain junk and that you don't feed them to your kids. At least that is my idea of them.
My mother never bought them for us and the only time I got a taste of Apple Jacks was when we visited my cousins and that was when we were little. My mother cooked us a meal all the way until high school.

After leaving home I indulged for several years and bought the crap for myself... You know the ones. Reeses Puffs cereal, Fruit Loops....

But my idea changed when I had my own kids. There is not enough nutrition in those boxed cereals. But not much thought went into my choices. I prefer to have my kids eat eggs and wheat toast for breakfast or oatmeal with fruit, or yogurt and fruit with granola. I eat the same things now and I want them to be able to make good choices later too.

So it was befitting to read this article about the top worst cereals you can feed your children. It's written by the editors of Prevention Magazine. It was astounding to see that some of the cereals had as much and if not more sugar in them than a Twinkie! And that is when you serve the suggested size of one cup! That means you don't fill the bowl or you might as well just give your kid a candy bar for breakfast.

It makes me feel good about the choices I have made. We do have cereal in our house and thankfully one of them ranks in the good choices category, Honey Bunches of Oats. I have been buying the Kashi cereals and they didn't do the study on them. I would have liked to see where they rank. They did study some healthy organic choices that can probably be found at stores like Whole Foods or your local health food store.

My kids won't be seeing the likes of these at the breakfast table anytime soon. Maybe if they added some whole grain, cut the sugar and removed the colorful dyes. Ah what's the point.