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• Kid's Cereal Bad, Adults' Cereal Good

  Breakfast for many of us families is a bowl of cereal (often gulped down standing up before running off to work or school). Sometimes, it's even dinner on the craziest days.  It's convenient, quick and generally pretty nutritious. But if you're letting your kids pick the cereal, you may be serving them a less healthy meal than you'd hope. An analysis in the Journal of The American Dietetic Association found that two-thirds of cereals marketed to children – which meant they had a licensed character or an activity directed towards kids on the box – didn’t meet national standards for sugar content and other aspects. They also make misleading health claims,... Read More... Posted Apr 29 2008, 06:16 PM by AmyinMotown with | with 12 comment(s) Filed under: feeding kids, nutrition, cereal, sugar, whole grain, american dietetic association

• Rachael Ray Eat Your Heart Out: 3 Second Meals Easy and Tasty

  Rachael Ray is cute. I'll give you that.  Plus, the girl can really spell.  But I'm not sure she's simplified meal-planning and preparation enough for most parents of young children.  Many of you work, and in places where the only take-out options are KFC or McDonald's.  You come home tired, hungry, and you want to spend quality time with your sweet littles, not slaving for 5 minutes over a hot stove.  And that is the genesis of the 3-second meal.  Because even busy, tired parents have three seconds to spare. Am I right?  Here's how it works... Read More... Posted Sep 12 2007, 02:03 PM by Rachael Brownell (Redsy) with | with 8 comment(s) Filed under: Parent Hacks, cereal, rachael ray, kitchenista, 3 second meals, raisin bran

• Why Tony the Tiger has a Grrrrreat Memory

  Great. Just when I've totally got my kids (um, and me...) weaned off the sugary cereals, we get the news that they may have some redeeming qualities after all. It turns out that foods with a high glycemic-index (read: tons and tons of sugar) like sweetened cereals may help kids remember words better in the short term. Trix before spelling tests?  I can totally see it now, teachers handing out bowls of Cocoa Puffs in order to boost standardized test scores. or is it only my mind that works that way? But hold on here, don't abandon your organic Purely-Oh's just yet. The study only involved 38 subjects, all teenagers. They were fed either a high glycemic-index (GI) cereal or a high-fiber bran-based low-GI cereal, and then were tested on the names of various fruits, vegetables and spices. The kids who ate the high-GI cereal remembered more than 5% more words. Ooh, scientific, eh? If I ate bran cereal I might not be interested in spouting off names of food either. Posted Jul 16 2007, 02:25 PM by Karen Murphy with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: kids, cereal, tests, memory, high glycemic-index food, sugary cereal

• Is It Any Wonder Our Kids Are Fat? Cereal Straws

  I'm both repulsed by and strangely attracted to this new product, which if I understand it correctly is an edible Froot Loop-flavored straw-thing lined with sweetened faux-milk that you (well, your kid, actually) is supposed to suck real milk through. I'm pretty sure I would just skip the milk and crunch down the straw, like eating hardened bottom-of-the-box cereal-dust. Yeah. Yum! Finally someone marketed this little goldmine. So...verdict? I'm just going to say that it's likely that my strange attraction has something to do with my not having had sugar in weeks and I'm suffering withdrawal, and we'll just chalk this little item up to the ranks of "EWWW" unless you can tell me differently. M'kay? Posted Jun 30 2007, 09:19 AM by Karen Murphy with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: cereal, product, Froot Loops

• Disney Going into the Cereal Business? Gag Me

  Oh, puleeze, someone save me from Disney's new Princess Fairytale Flakes.  Please.  I'm begging you.  And while you're at it, take the Little Einsteins Fruity Stars and the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Berry Crunch with you too.  You think I'm kidding?  I wish I was.  Nope, erstwhile kid-crack purveyor Disney is the latest entry into the already clogged kid's sugary cereal market, teaming up with sell-out General Mills to manufacture this junk.  Don't get me wrong.  I love a good box of, say, Froot Loops once in awhile for a nice sugar-high. But I don't feed that crap to my kids.  Nor would I be caught dead spooning up some "lightly sweetened, crispy pink corn flakes [that] offer a fairytale beginning to every day."  Aaaaaaiiiiiiiii!  I hope the copywriter who wrote that tripe got paid some big bucks. Nutritious?  Riiiight.  Like crack cocaine with milk.  Pass me another bowl of that "magical, nutritious breakfast", please! Posted Feb 15 2007, 09:06 AM by Karen Murphy with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: kids, food, health, disney, nutrition, cereal