Making a healthy breakfast

This week is Farmhouse Breakfast Week. The idea is to encourage people to start their day with a healthy breakfast.

There are some interesting statistics surrounding breakfast; for instance:

One in six adults never eat breakfast
36% of consumers agree that skipping breakfast leads to overeating later in the day
32% of ten to sixteen year old children living in England do not eat breakfast before leaving home
Research done by the Cardiff University School of Psychology, has shown that eating breakfast helps children function better in school than those who skip the first meal of the day.

Nutritional breakfast

I have to admit to having an old fashioned view about breakfast! I view it as the most important meal of the day, and even if Little Miss Green says she is not hungry (which only happens if she is nervous about something), I’ll whizz up a smoothie which slides down easily and provides her with a nutritional start to the day.

As you may be aware, we try to reduce refined sugar as much as we can.

Sugar free breakfast

I’m often asked how on earth I manage to feed my daughter while keeping her off sugar. People rightly point out that most breakfast cereals contain sugar, all squashes and drinks have either sugar or artificial sweeteners in them, so what on earth do I do!?

Feeding a child a varied and nutritionally balanced diet takes care and attention, but basically the secret is to AVOID products aimed at kids! Most are full of sugar, salt and fat and ruin a child’s palate in no time, leaving them hankering after stronger tastes.

I thought I would keep a photo diary of my daughter’s breakfasts for a week, so you can see what she eats in a typical week.

Enjoy!

Monday

Oats soaked in natural yogurt, served with apple and blackberry compote

Tuesday

Home made waffles served with fresh berries

Wednesday

banana mashed into natural yogurt and served with fresh nectarine

Thursday

porrage with yogurt, dried mango and sliced apple

Friday

bowl of sugar free cereal with fruit juice and a sugar free cereal bar – great for days when you don’t have time to prepare anything! We’re currently using Nature’s Path Millet and oatbran flakes and the bar was a Lyme Regis ‘Fruit 4 U’ bar which is basically fruit leather or dried fruit.

Saturday

Homemade apple turnover and yogurt

Sunday

Scrambled eggs on toast

As you can see, it’s not difficult to ring the changes over the course of a week and not an ounce of refined sugar in sight! Tell me; what is your favourite breakfast?