The Enivronmental Working Group has released a new report on the sugar content of children’s cereals. They reviewed 84 popular cereals marketed to children and found that (surprise)
Most children’s cereals fail to meet the federal government’s proposed voluntary guidelines for foods nutritious enough to be marketed to children. Sugar is the top problem, but many also contain too much sodium or fat or not enough whole grain. The bottom line: Most parents say no to dessert for breakfast, but many children’s cereals have just as much sugar as a dessert – or more.
I love cereal and grew up eating many of the well-known brands of the ’70s and ’80s. I’m still drawn to it as a convenience food but I rarely buy it these days, even for my daughter. Nutrition aside, it’s expensive; I don’t get enough mileage out of a relatively small box that costs $4-$5. Instead I’ll serve homemade granola or oatmeal (old-fashioned, not instant), eggs, toast, pancakes, crepes, waffles, muffins, or grits. I’ll incorporate some whole wheat flour into my recipes for added whole grains, and put some dairy (or in my case almond milk) and seasonal fresh fruit on the side. It might sound more labor-intensive than tipping out the contents of a box into a bowl, but it’s usually more filling and leftovers or extra batter can be frozen or stored for use on future mornings.
I’ve never ventured far into the realm of savory breakfasts, which can include any kind of leftovers you want (we usually use these for lunches), and foods eaten elsewhere around the world for the morning meal, like rice or legumes. These can be far more palatable options for adults and those who consider themselves to be not breakfast eaters, like my husband, but even children may find them novel alternatives. Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian has a wonderful section on grains, and the varieties and cooking methods are so varied you have a very wide range of options.
EWG offers a full page of Healthy Breakfast Tips aimed primarily at helping people choose healthier cereals, but incorporating other suggestions as well.
What are your favorite cereal alternatives?
On Starting Seeds
I noticed this blog post over at Kitchen Gardeners International about economizing on starting seeds. Anyone who’s been gardening for a while has no doubt considered starting their own transplants from seed, and it is certainly IS a seductive notion when all those seed catalogs show up in the mailbox midwinter.
Years ago when we lived on an old farm and I started my first big kitchen garden, I had a light kit which I had a lot of success with, but sadly it got left behind in one of our many moves. Since then I’ve tried intermittently to start my own seeds, with equally intermittent success. This year, facing the loss of our CSA share and having decided to expand our kitchen garden again, I’m starting tomatoes and tomatillos.
Honestly, most gardeners with small plots really don’t need to start their own plants, since they will only require a few and the cost will be similar to or cheaper than the cost of starting their own. We are also fortunate in being able to get a good selection of varieties suited to our region at the Mobile Botanical Gardens plant sale in late March, grown by their excellent greenhouse volunteers.
So why grow your own? To get a jump on the growing season, to handpick the varieties you grow, and to control growing conditions if you’re strict about organic practices. It can also be fun; as every elementary school science teacher knows, it’s thrilling to see the bright green seed leaves pushing through the earth and leaning toward the light for the first time.
While I’m not about to set up shop lights (at least, not this year), I did find the tips from the article about rolling your own newspaper pots and making your own seed starting mix to be pretty useful. While it may look like I have dirt in the pots pictured above, it’s actually a starting mix I put together from ingredients I had on hand. Before I did anything I sterilized the containers I’d saved by soaking them in a weak bleach solution, and set them out to dry. Then I gathered my materials for the mix – some starting mix I already had that contained peat moss, vermiculite, and perlite; sand; worm castings; and a small amount of container mix. I put all the ingredients in a bucket, wetted them down, mixed thoroughly, divided it into the containers, and then planted the seeds according to the directions. When the plants start growing I’ll be feeding them with a seaweed solution which I ordered online.
I’m trying four varieties of tomato: two hybrids and two heirlooms. In the five and a half years we’ve lived here I’ve had the most success growing hybrid, disease resistant slicing tomatoes, as well as cherry tomatoes, many of which do remarkably well under the most brutal growing conditions, including neglect (as I can verify!). When selecting hybrids be sure to get varieties that are nematode resistant if you are growing in-ground, because they are common in the soil here. Bill Finch recommends fast-maturing varieties (75 days or less) for the Gulf Coast so you can get a crop in before the summer heat descends. The two hybrids I’m growing are Celebrity, which was grown with great success by our CSA, and Golden Girl. And while heirloom tomatoes, with their long maturation periods and less resistance to disease, do not do tremendously well in our climate, I’m a sucker for their large fruits and bold flavors so there will always be room in my garden for a few plants. My heirlooms are Cherokee Purple and Martino’s Roma, a small paste tomato, both varieties which should be more amenable to our area than some of the classic heirlooms. We had pounds and pounds of romas from the CSA last year and I could not get enough of the delectable fresh tomato sauce. Unfortunately for my husband I’m not a fan of cherry tomatoes, so I’ll be picking up a single plant later in the season for him.
If you’re starting seeds this year, what’s your strategy?