Happy Cereal Sunday!

Today we have a story about digestive health, and a big winner in my contest!!

First, let’s talk about cereal. (I have no doubt this one is going to make Sister crinkle her nose in distaste LOL ! )

If you read about my recent visit to the doctor on my other blog, then you know about probiotics. Lot’s of cereal have fiber in them, I only know of 2 that also have probiotics. Since I got a good deal on it on my recent shopping trip, I decided to try Kashi Vive. They plug it as “probiotic digestive wellness cereal”, and it has 12 grams of fiber…..yes, that’s nice, but does it TASTE good?

Kashi and I have never been friends, I have tried many of their cereals, and most of them are like putting some twigs, bark, and mulch in a bowl and pouring milk on them. Sure, it will keep things moving so to speak, but I like cereal and it MUST taste good or I’m not buying.

Kashi Vive comes in 1 flavor, Toasted graham and Vanilla, and when I opened the box and instantly noticed a nice sweet odor…like graham crackers! Good start. I poured it into my bowl and saw that it comes in flakes, twigs, and little white puffs. However, on first bite this does not taste like I am eating a tree with sugar on it! I was pleasantly surprised by the nice sweet flavor! The flakes are a little heavy (they must hold all the fiber LOL), the twigs and the little white balls hold all the sweetness - it was a nice balance. I will warn you it does get soggy quick, so don’t take notes while you eat it like I do! (I’m such a cereal geek!)

Serving size on the box says 1 1/2 cups, which is larger than most cereals at 3/4 - 1 cup ; but who follows that anyway? We just our it in the bowl and eat it , right? And then…when the cereal is gone and we still have milk left, we pour in MORE cereal! At 1 1/2 cups it has 170 calories (again, high for cereal) - but it balances out with 12 grams of fiber, and is also a good source of potassium (45%), Calcium and Vitamin D (20% each).

Now, if I didn’t have to eat this kind of cereal, would I buy it? Probably not, I’ve always been a Cheerios and Sugar Smacks kind of girl - and they will stay in my pantry. But as we get older (as I’ve been reminded numerous times this week) our nutritional needs change, so I’ll be keeping this one in the mix for a while and see how it works out for me.

And, without further ado, the winner of the Fabulous Blogoversary Prize Pack is :

Commenter #6 - Dedicated! Congrats, D - email me your address and I will get your prize in the mail to you!

Thanks to everyone who entered, I hope you’ll all keep reading, and commenting, even if there aren’t prizes all the time!

My 8 year old Nephew slept over last night, we ate ice cream in bed while watching a James Bond movie, and this morning had breakfast at the diner and went to an “Old Fashioned” (his term) classic car show.
I thought it would be fun to ask his opinion on cereal. He is a picky eater, so I was surpised at the wide variety of favorites he chose.
(His responses are in italics)

What is your favorite cereal?

Raisin Brand (his term)
Grape Nuts
Rice Krispies
Cheerios
Life
(Knowing his Mother’s aversion to sugared cereals, these choices do not surprise me - her children do not get exposed to the wonder that is CHOCOLATE FROSTED SUGAR BOMBS!)

Grape Nuts? Really? You LIKE Grape Nuts?

YEAH!

Why?

Cause my favorite fruit is Grapes, and I like it mixed together with nuts.

But, there are no actual “grapes” in Grape Nuts….?

I know, but it’s got great flavor!

Raisin Brand? You like Raisins?

Yeah

Not usually a kid friendly food. Who introduced you to Raisin Brand?

My Dad

Do you know that Raisin Brand is full of fiber?

Yeah

And do you know what that cereal will do for you?

Make you fat?

No. Do you know what fiber does to your body?

No

Helps you poop!

(breaks out in hysterical 8 yr old boy laughter, as anything related to the bathroom is hilarious at that age!)

Anything else you would like to tell us about cereal?

How about Life.

What about it?

My Mom only buys it when it’s on sale.

Why is that?

Because it’s like four bucks a pack. Or maybe five. I think it’s $4.95.

There you have it, from the mouth of a budding cereologist!

In my feeble attempt to try and regain some normalcy and routine in my life, I bring back Cereal Sunday!

I have various cereal related thoughts in my head lately, so forgive me for wandering around a bit before we get down tot he serious business of what’s in my bowl.

Cereal has been my dinner of choice for the past 2 weeks….after coming home from work and being on the computer or sorting through Mom’s paperwork for a few hours, before I know it the clock is striking 9pm - too late for a heavy meal, but needing to force myself to eat something, I turn to my beloved bowl - a source of comfort.

While at Mom’s last week, I found myself with a cereal quandry. She has about 10 boxes in the pantry (maybe I come by this naturally?…is there a cereal loving gene..?)….upon sorting through them I find most of them to be stale and yucky - hence we were forced to throw out some cereal - a sin in my world! Note: by “throw out” I do not mean into the garbage, that would be wasteful, we tossed it around the backyard for the birds and bunnies. Mom liked storing her cereal in Tupperware containers (I foresee a flurry of hate mail from Tupperware sales coming…!)… I find that these storage methods for cereal do not work well, and actually make the cereal taste like the container. YUCK. I keep my cereal in the original box, in my house cereal is not around long enough to get stale!

My staple cereal this past week has been Frosted Mini Wheats, or rather, Wal Mart GREAT VALUE Frosted Shredded Wheat - to be exact. At $1.97 a box, it IS a great value…but I find it lacking in taste. The Wal Mart brand is a tighly woven biscuit (as opposed to the loosely woven Kellogg’s brand biscuit) , heavy on the frosting side, which I like….but, not too much flavor in the wheat side. So, after I finish the box I won’t be purchasing that brand anymore. As far as frosted mini wheats go, the Kelloggs brand has always been my favorite - in the red box. The red box are the “Big Bite” size, and you crunch them down into bite sized pieces with your spoon. These are the mini wheats from my childhood - before they came out with “spoon sized” shredded wheat. Just enough frosting on the frosted side, and deliscious wheaty goodness on the wheat side….I actually search out the biscuits with the dark brown burned parts on the wheat side! I like to leave them to soak up the milk for a few minutes, not long enough to get completely soggy - just long enough to get them moist. Low in calories, and high in fiber - it’s the sugar coated cereal that’s almost good for you!

Oatmeal. A winter staple. A fiber packed meal on a cold morning. Heart healthy, low in calories!

Quick Oats versus Instant?
Who wins the battle of Oatmeal?

You instant Oatmeals are very convenient, they come in many flavors the kids love, and other marketable terms like “Weight Control”, “Women’s Health”..and let’s face it, we are all very busy, so there is no time to hover over the stove stirring up a pot of oatmeal every morning like Florida Evans from Good Times! However, instant is also pretty expensive if you break it down - as much as .50 cents per serving for store brands, very high in sugar and for something that is supposed to be good for you, it has a lot of unpronounceable words in the ingredients.

Your basic tub of Quick Cook Oats looks very boring on the store shelf. However, upon further inspection, it’s a bit cheaper than the instant, and MUCH larger! Wait….I can get THIRTEEN servings out of this canister? Do the math, that’s about 22 cents per serving! (Your girl buys the store brand!) And, actually, 1/2 cup of dry oats cooks up to a pretty good size serving, so I usually only use 1/4 cup, which means I get 26 servings out of a canister! Ingredients? 100% Natural Oats. That’s it. No dextra-whatever, and flabo-whoosy-whatsis. There are microwave directions, so you can cook it in under 2 minutes, just like the instant. The directions are very simple, so a child can do it themselves, as long as they are old enough to use the microwave! (You can premeasure into ziploc bags and make your own “instant” packets!) AND, you can add your own flavorful ingredients to make them taste even better. I like to sprinkle cinnamon & sugar on mine and a splash of milk, you can also put honey on it, chopped nuts, maple syrup, or sliced bananas! You can do the same thing with Quick Oats int he canister as the overpriced instant envelopes - and it will taste so much better!

Quick Cook Oats win by a landslide in my house, for cost AND flavor! How abut your house? Give them a try and see if you feel the same way!

Today we are going to focus on a classic.
A favorite in my house….the one cereal that I REFUSE to purchase in a Generic branding, one that I always have in the pantry….because, when life gives you lemons, when you are down and out, when you are depressed and feeling blue, when you need a cereal pick me up to get you through your stressfull day……..what’s better than Cheerios in the Yellow box?
That’s why they call them CHEER-IOS..because they make you so freaking happy! (In fact, when they first came out in the 1940’s, they WERE called Cheery- Oats!) They are in a yellow box, yellow reminds you of sunshine…more happiness. Those folks at General Mills are not fooling around here, people…this stuff is xanax in a cereal box! I like to call it “The Cheerio Effect”.
The folks at General Mills have not screwed with the recipe of original Cheerios since it was invented in 1941, the very FIRST ready to eat oat cereal. I like that, it shows stability…they know they have a good product, and they are not going to remove it from the market or muck it up by removing a key ingredient (Are you listening, Post Alpha Bits?). When they wanted new or different formulas, they left the original and came up with new flavors….boy, did they come up with new flavors…a lot! Honey Nut Cheerios, Apple Cinnamon Cheerios, Frosted Cheerios, Multi Grain Cheerios…and more recently, Berry Burst, Yogurt Burst (YUCK), Fruity Cheerios..and Oat Cluster Cheerios. You can keep them all………I will stick with the original, a classic. A cereal for young and old. How many times have you been out and seen a small child in a stroller with a baggie of Cheerios? It’s the perfect finger food for their tiny little hands! And, how many old codgers are trying to either boost their fiber intake or reduce their cholestoral with these fine whole grain oats?
They should serve Cheerios at every White House dinner….we could solve a lot of the worlds problems with cereal.