What’s for Breakfast?

That’s a good question. Since we are looking for some foods that will get us started and keep us going for an active morning, let’s consider some good breakfast foods that would give us carbohydrates to keep us going.

Cereals: There are several cereals that I found in our grocery stores that are good such as: Uncle Sam Cereal; Kashi 7 Whole Grain Puffs; Ezekiel 4:9 cereal; Puffed Wheat and Puffed Rice are pretty good; Cream of Wheat original; Bob’s Red Mill Muesli; Hodgson Mill Muesli; Arrowhead Mills Steel Cut Oats; Quaker Old Fashioned Oats; Bob’s Red Mill Cornmeal (grits); rice (can be sweetened with honey or maple syrup; cinnamon.

If you compare regular cereals (90% of the cereal aisle) with the small section that includes Bob’s Red Mill, Hodgson Mills and Arrowhead Mills, you discover a big difference in the ingredients.

Here’s what to watch for:

• Multiple sugars: in regular cereals it is very common for them to list several sugars making sugar a main ingredient.

• A long list of segregated vitamins and preservatives.

• At one time BHT and BHA were added to cereals. These are possible human carcinogens that can also cause liver and kidney damage, behavioral problems, infertility, can weaken the immune system, can cause birth defects and should be avoided by infants, young children, pregnant women and those sensitive to aspirin. They are not put in the food anymore BUT they are added to the packaging for freshness. Does that make you feel better?

Ed and I have rolled oats for breakfast each morning. You don’t have to have something different every day; that’s up to you. I add some berries and half a banana, ground flaxseed, maybe a tablespoon of raw sunflower seeds or toasted wheat germ. I like cinnamon and cloves for flavor, Ed likes some carob powder. Rice milk moistens everything. We have breakfast anytime from 5:45 until 7:00 and it’s enough to keep us full until after noon and beyond.

Other ideas:

• Mix a little Muesli or Ezekiel cereal with the oats for added crunch

• Drizzle a little honey or maple syrup on it

• Use unsweetened apple juice for sweetness (Knudsen is NOT from concentrate)

• Raisins or dates are great but remember that they are high in calories

• Nut butters on whole wheat toast are good but they also have lots of calories. (That doesn’t mean they are fattening, it means you can’t eat half the jar at one meal. Oil has 120 calories per tablespoon.)

Toast: Whole wheat toast (about 100 calories a slice) is a good idea but putting butter (100 calories per tablespoon) on it will really increase the calories.

Juice: Juices add a lot of calories and sugar and not too much of anything else. Also, they won’t fill you up.

Fruit: Fruit is great in the morning but too much can keep you from losing weight. There is a lot of sweetness in fruits especially dried ones; this doesn’t mean you cannot eat them, just don’t overeat them.