FYI - the "Real Food On A Budget" posts will go up Wednesday morning (or late Tuesday night) from now on and will include a Linky for you to link up to your posts. There may be additional posts throughout the week as the mood strikes me, but for now, you can count on Wednesdays at a bare minimum!
So this whole "switching to Real Food" is a process. I would love to tell you that we woke up one morning and started eating homemade granola with kefir instead of <insert name of sugary cereal here>, but that would just be too easy. I didn't come to the realization that we needed to make this change overnight and the changes in our house aren't going to happen overnight.
So let's take this one meal at a time, shall we?
First - let's look at the foods that are being eliminated for breakfast (with the occasional "special treat" because I don't want my children to slit my throat while I sleep)
- Packaged cereals that contain High Fructose Corn Syrup or GMO (more on GMO later)
- Prepackaged oatmeal with brown sugar
- Toast and jelly (meaning commercial white bread toast and "jelly jelly"..the kind that is mainly sugar with a trace of fruit)
- Premade "convenience breakfast foods" (waffles, pancakes, french toast sticks, etc)
- Donuts (actually not a problem in our house, but I thought I would include it)
And here are the things that we WILL be having on our breakfast menu:
- Yogurt with fruit and honey or homemade granola
- Orange juice
- Whole Wheat or Banana pancakes
- Breakfast casserole (for weekends)
- Oatmeal with honey or pure maple syrup
- Eggs fried in butter or coconut oil, toast (made with whole wheat sandwich bread) or homemade English Muffins with butter and/or honey or peanut butter (no-sugar added peanut butter)
- Baked oatmeal
As you can see, by making a pledge to eat healthier, we are opening up many more options for breakfast than we had before. Sure, the extra work of baking is a consideration, but the payoff (in terms of having a healthier family) is worth it!
What are your Real Food morning solutions for breakfast? Post them in the comments! If you are a blogger, be sure to use the Simply Linked so that we can all enjoy your posts!
Julie
Just wondering what the problems are with Toast with jelly and oatmeal with brown sugar.
By the way, have you tried making your own yogurt yet? It's much easier than it sounds.
Bonnie
Fresh fruit always makes for a great breakfast we think!
Carol
For breakfast, I love to make scrambled eggs (I usually use one whole egg, and 2 egg whites). I mix in chopped up leftover vegetables from the night before. Sometimes I sprinkle with a little bit of cheese and salsa before I eat it. (My family doesn't like the salsa part, but they'll eat anything sprinkled with cheese! LOL) If you can eat wheat, this makes fabulous filling for a breakfast burrito.
Also love to make a coconut milk smoothie. 1 can of coconut milk, 16 oz. of unsweetened strawberries, 1 tablespoon of flaxseed (optional) blended well. I'm used to not having a lot of sugar, so it's plenty sweet for me; but my husband says his portion needs honey or a banana added. It's a very inexpensive, dairy-free version of the yogurt drinks. If I drink all of it myself, it lasts me 4 hours! And I keep losing weight 🙂 Nice benefit of coconut fat.
I also bake twice the amount of potatoes that I need for dinner, and keep the extras in the fridge to chop up quick and fry up for breakfast with a dollop of butter. (We can't eat gluten, so this is a quick, inexpensive carb)
Be encouraged: I grew up on donuts and Cookie Crisp and only like creamed corn for a vegetable! Tastes do change, but it does take time 🙂 Now I get accused of being "granola crunchy" and forcing my DH to suffer "chic" food. LOL
Lisa
To gently get your kids to go for this try using the 2, 5, 3 method of choosing cereal. Have your kids read labels and look for cereals that have 2 grams or fat per serving or less, 5 grams of sugar or less, and 3 grams of fiber. Good luck trying to eat no hfcs. It is everywhere. I also try to get the kids to eat at least 3 food groups at each meal. For example---cereal (grain group), milk (milk group), and fruit (fruit group). Educate them now while they are young because we all know how hard it is to change when we grow up:)
Lauren @ Just Add Lauren
Thanks for the post on switching to real food. I, like you, am in the transitional period of trying to switch to real food. I would also love to say that every morning we wake up and eat smoothies with spinach and flax seeds, but its just not true.
Right now, our breakfast items are mainly breakfast burritos and steel cut oatmeal (for my husband and me, respectively). I make ahead a batch of breakfast burritos with tortillas, eggs, cheese, and a little bit of sausage and I freeze them for him to take to work with him, to avoid stopping for fast food or (horror of horrors) eating at the cafeteria!
I am a big fan of steel cut oats myself, because I have time in the morning to let them cook. I mix them with some dried cherries and nuts, and they are wonderful!
Thanks again for your post!
.-= Lauren @ Just Add Lauren´s last blog ..Organic Versus All Natural Foods =-.
Melissa S.
I've found the compromise by letting the kids eat "sugary cereal" on Sunday with Daddy. My husband refuses all attempts at healthy cereal, so since he only eats breakfast on the weekends with us, I allow the boys to do it when he does. We usually do eggs/pancakes on Saturday. So far (my children are small) it is working ok! Ideally I would like to have it completely omitted, buy hey. . . it's a process! Maybe someday!!!
Steph B.
I start breakfast Sunday night.... I fry up some bacon (saving the grease)... then I take 6 eggs (cage free), some veggies (usually onions and peppers), little bit of fresh basil, crumble in the bacon (sometimes I use sausage) and whisk it all together.
Then I use a little bit of the bacon grease to coat the inside of muffin pan... and pour the egg mix even into the 6 muffin "cups". Bake at 350 for 18 - 20.
After they cool I wrap them in tin foil (one for my 6 year old, two for my husband and I). In the mornings we just throw the tinfoil packet in the toaster oven to heat and we have a hot, quick breakfast with no mess before work or school.
You can add anything you want... cheese, salsa and taco seasonings... spinach and feta...