Cereal - Breakfast Ideas

The Serial Eater! (Cereal Eater)

If you always have cereal for breakfast or are planning to change lifestyle and watch what you eat, this article will surely help you. Cereal for breakfast is surely one of the healthier options available to us these days, and the brands available to us are simply amazing. There’re so many variants – Kellogg’s Chocos, honey loops, bran cornflakes, whole wheat flakes, oat bites, plain cornflakes, flavored strawberry or banana, muesli, plain oats etc. When we enter that alleyway in the store, we just get so excited that we wanna buy all the varieties. One point I want to make here – Just buying cereal or diligently eating it day after day for breakfast, alone, is not going to help in weight loss.

Note these nutritional info for various cornflakes in the market.

 
 

I recommend cereal as it’s a quick breakfast and no preparation needed. But when you’re buying it please read the fat content and calories per serving, as well as the SERVING SIZE mentioned. We often skip this, and we fail to realize that the portions usually mentioned are way too tiny for a wholesome filling breakfast. We end up adding more milk to the cereal or more cereal than one portion calls for, and thus consume more calories than we believe.

Now, 1 glass milk and 1 apple have 130 calories. So, an apple shake would be healthier and more filling than a bowl of cereal. We Indians have always enjoyed hot, freshly made breakfast and we’re still to catch up with the box of breakfast trend. But children easily get fascinated! For children, always avoid the cereals with high sugar content. These are made so that kids obviously like it, but the sugar in them cancel out any nutrition it has. Try to buy the ones with less fat content (unless your child is underweight). You can judge it from the amount of ‘calories from sugar or fat’.

I’m sure the cereal lovers are already doing the following, but I reiterate these for the cereal beginners. Let’s gain the maximum from this product available to us.

Cereal Ideas for weight watchers

• Always have cereal in skimmed milk.
• Do not add dry fruits to the cereal. You can munch on dry fruits after an hour as snack to keep BMR high.
• Do not add raisins with the nuts. Only add almonds if you like. Cashews and raisins are high on fat.
• Say no to sweetened cereals. This way you t eating cereal can add sugarfree or artificial sweeteners or no sugar in your breakfast and save on calories. I as ‘pleasantly plump’ girl always gave in to the feeling that eating cereal will help me lose weight!

Tasty Cereal Ideas

• Mix chopped fruit in the cereal.
• Try your usual cereal in cold milk if usually take it hot or vice-versa. A little twist is good sometimes!
• Add chopped prunes to the bowl.
• Take the usual cornflakes or any unsweetened cereal in cold milk, and add 1 spoon of strawberry or almond crush or any favorite squash. This gives the milk a little flavour and also saves you money as flavored cereal is much more expensive than plain ones.
• If you absolutely cannot eat plain cereal but have to because the weight scale says so, then buy another pack of the flavored cereal whichever you like best. Now make your cereal bowl with skimmed milk, and 1/3^rd flavored cereal and 2/3 rd plain or oat bites or the bland ones. This way you get a filling healthy breakfast which is still 66% healthier than a full bowl of the flavored cereal!
• Oats are versatile. You can also make then savory instead of sweet. It’s made similar to a Poha. I’ll be posting that recipe very soon. Till then you can enjoy Poha, the maharashtrian breakfast, favorite of entire India now!