The sad truth is, most breakfast cereals are pretty much empty calories, at least the ones you buy in a box. Oh, there are exceptions but you really have to look for them as the most common breakfast cereals are pretty much marketed for children. To see how true this is, one only needs to walk down the cereal aisle in your local supermarket and take a look at some of the more popular titles.



If you've been watching TV since the 1960s you have certainly heard Tony The Tiger scream, "They're Great!" He is of course talking about Kellogg's Sugar Frosted Flakes. This is one cereal that could send a child into a sugar stroke without even blinking an eye. It's no wonder kids are hyper in school all day. And of course the list of these kids cereals goes on forever with titles like "Sugar Pops", "Sugar Smacks", "Corn Pops", "Count Chocula", "Frankenberry", "Booberry", "Cocoa Pebbles", "Captain Crunch", "Cheerios", "Honey Nut Cheerios", "Trix", "Lucky Charms" and on and on and on. It's like an army invasion just checking out each box, one with more sugar than the other.

Fortunately, there are some decent cereals out there. For the health nut there are some fairly nutritious titles like "Golean", "Golean Crunch", "Wheaties", "Cream Of Wheat", "Farina" and other similar types. These cereals don't have nearly as much sugar as the kid tested variety and many of them are even high in fiber like Kashi's Golean and Golean Crunch which have ten and eight grams of fiber respectively. They still have a small amount of sugar but in comparison to the kid cereals, they're much better.

Of course there are your hot and cold cereals. Most of the ones mentioned above are your out of the box, throw on a little milk and some fruit cold variety. But on a cold winter day there is nothing like a nice hot bowl of cream of wheat or farina. If you want something really fast there is the whole Quaker Oats line of oatmeal cereals. All of these come with a different kind of flavoring added like maple brown sugar, apples, peaches and cream and others. These are easy to make. Just open the package, throw it in a cup or bowl, add some water and pop it in the microwave. In about one minute you've got yourself a hot cup of oatmeal. The packages are small and don't really make a lot so if you have a big appetite you may want to make a couple of these.

Eventually, breakfast cereal manufacturers are going to realize that breakfast really is the most important meal of the day and they're going to start making cereals that you won't mind your kid eating first thing in the morning.