What's new
The Front Row Forums

Register a free account today to become a member of the world's largest Rugby League discussion forum! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

What's your favorite breakfast cereal?

roopy

Referee
Messages
27,980
Mine usually consists of 2 slices of bread with Nutella on it..

Good or bad? I'm not sure, does a decent job though.
depends on the bread really.
If it's the worst kind of highly processed white bread you might as well be eating cake for breakfast, but if it's a really good wholemeal bread it wouldn't be too bad - a bit high in sugar and fat - but not horrible.

The biggest con with bread is 'multi-grain' - which is basically white bread with a handfull of gravel in it - only a tiny bit healthier than ordinary white bread - while 'wholemeal' bread has all the soluable fibre and vitamins from the husk of the wheat in it, which are more and more being recognised as the most important parts.
 

Joker's Wild

Coach
Messages
17,894
The best "cereals" are usually the cheapest (Weet-Bix, oats)

I usually have 1 cup of quick oats (made with skim milk) with blueberries, banana and a drizzle of honey. If I am lifting in the morning Ill also add a scoop of vanilla whey protein powder.

Also, those ingredients go well as a smoothie if I am running late and need to have it in the car
 

CliffyIsGod

First Grade
Messages
6,454
depends on the bread really.
If it's the worst kind of highly processed white bread you might as well be eating cake for breakfast, but if it's a really good wholemeal bread it wouldn't be too bad - a bit high in sugar and fat - but not horrible.

The biggest con with bread is 'multi-grain' - which is basically white bread with a handfull of gravel in it - only a tiny bit healthier than ordinary white bread - while 'wholemeal' bread has all the soluable fibre and vitamins from the husk of the wheat in it, which are more and more being recognised as the most important parts.

Wholemeal multi-grain ftw!
 

roopy

Referee
Messages
27,980
Wholemeal multi-grain ftw!
multi-grain sounds like it means it is made out of several types of cereal crop, which would be good, but what bread manufacturers mean by 'multi-grain' is it has unmilled grain thrown in, which is not digestable, so it might add a bit of bulk to your poo, but you get no vitamins or soluable fibre from it.

"Multi-grain' is popular because people can see the difference, but it's just a con - it's no better than white bread really, or maybe just a tiny bit better.

I heard a baker on the radio the other day talking about 'sourdough' bread, which he said should be made with only 4 ingredients - wholemeal flour, yeast, water and a small amount of oil. Unfortunately, he said commercial bakers have started making 'fake' sourdough, and because the name is not copyright they can call anything by the name. He recommended reading the list of ingredients and not buying anything that lists more than 4.
 

CC_Eagle

First Grade
Messages
7,295
Schooner of Milo with light milk and cereal - usually one of the Uncle Toby's "Plus" ones at the moment. Depending on supply, sometimes a banana.

Can't go without it.
 

Cliffhanger

Coach
Messages
15,228
I am generally the last person to recommend eating cereals, mostly because the ones that a marketed as healthy are still laced with sugar and they have little nutritional benefit. All you need to do is look at the first post in this thread to realise that there is something really wrong in how cereals are marketed.

Corn flakes it pretty much empty carbs and yet there is this perception out there that it is healthy and don't get me started on nutri-grains. Nutri my arse.

Further most people do not stick to the serving size recommended on the box, hell weet-bix even encourage you to eat more than the recommended serving size and on its own weet bix is not a well balanced breakfast and a lot of people add sugar to it.

Anyway I have come across an excellent cereal range, high in fibre and protein and not to high in sugar.

http://goodnesssuperfoods.com.au/

The Protein first cereal is the one I choose, it only has 7.7 grams of sugar per serve and 13.2 grams of dietary fibre and 8.7 grams of protein. Yes they're relatively expensive, but they are much better option than any commercial cereal I have come across.

If you are going have cereal have a serving of fruit on the side to make it more well balanced.

As has already been stated in this thread, oats are probably your best bet, they're cheap, they're healthy and they're pretty convenient. Just make sure to avoid the flavoured Quick Sachets, they are generally loaded with sugar. Try dicing an apple and adding it to hot porridge, it actually tastes pretty good.
 

SpaceMonkey

Immortal
Messages
37,542
The big fad in America at the moment is turkey bacon, which is a very low fat meat product that is cured the same way as pork bacon and apparently tastes almost identical to the non fat parts of bacon.
You ca actually have a very healthy version of bacon and eggs using turkey bacon and wholemeal bread without butter.
Might not be as nice, but you could probably eat it every day if you wanted to, guilt free.

Grilled short cut bacon is pretty lean too, not as tasty as the full fat stuff with the rind though!

I used to eat museli every morning but stopped eating cereal when I started trying to lose weight. Nowadays most mornings I usually just have a protein shake with lite milk, fat-free yoghurt and 1 raw egg blended into it, plus a tbsp of psyllium husk for fibre, and a tbsp of powdered oats if I'm going to need much energy that morning. I'll have eggs maybe a couple of times a week and bacon maybe once.
 

Cliffhanger

Coach
Messages
15,228
Just right isn't really healthy.

The fact that so many people think that these sugar-laced cereals are healthy has me worried. Either people don't know how to read a nutrition panel or don't even try. Just Right actually has more sugar per seving than Nutri Grain. Just right does have four times as much dietary fibre but half as much protein.

Do not rely on rumours or how things are marketed to determine what is the healthier option. Understand what the figures on the nutritional panel mean.
 
Last edited:

Fire

First Grade
Messages
9,669
Just right isn't really healthy.

The fact that so many people think that these sugar-laced cereals are healthy has me worried. Either people don't know how to read a nutrition panel or don't even try. Just Right actually has more sugar per seving than Nutri Grain. Just right does have four times as much dietary fibre but half as much protein.

Do not rely on rumours or how things are marketed to determine what is the healthier option. Understand what the figures on the nutritional panel mean.

No shit? Cheers for that, I appreciate it.

To be honest, I posted my favourite/healthy cereals. But I usually don't have time for cereal. My usual breakfast is a muesli bar, banana, glass of apple juice, and a coffee (which takes me 5 minutes). Is that healthy? I've never been into counting calories, just want to keep my weight within its competitive range.
 

Cliffhanger

Coach
Messages
15,228
Something which is not healthy, isn't necessarily bad for you. If your goal is just to maintain your body weight, than eating Just Right for breakfast or nutri grains isn't going to make you get fat. When you get older and your metabolism changes or if you start to get really involved in your training then you may want to put a little more thought into it. Of course the better you eat the better you will feel and the more energy you will have.

Musli Bars aren't healthy, they range from okay to terrible for you- some even have trans fats. When you're selecting your musli bars make a decision based on which ones have the least sugar and the most dietary fibre.

While juice is really quick and convenient to have on the run, when you juice an apple it loses all its dietary fibre, your much better off just eating an apple, or buying a nudie crushie, those juices are mainly crushed fruit.

As for the coffee depends what's in it.
 

SpaceMonkey

Immortal
Messages
37,542
The problem with cereal isn't that it's intrinsically unhealthy, because apart from the really sugary ones most of them don't contain anything thats genrally bad for you. The main issue is that they're overwhelmingly carbohydrate based, so unless you're eating them specifically to gain/maintain weight or to give yourself energy for a physically demanding job, they can end up being quite fattening as they'll push you into a caloric surplus once you add the rest of your daily meals. The other issue is most people eat way too much, I'm pretty sure my typical bowl of cereal was 2-3 times the recommended serving size when I was eating it for brekky.
 

Cliffhanger

Coach
Messages
15,228
Pretty much spot on. A serving of weet-bix is two and that's aboout 20 grams of carbs. How many people only eat two weet-bix? Hell on the commercials they encourage you to have more.

You do ten weet-bix, that's 100 grams of carbs, add in the carbs you're getting from the milk, that's another 15 grams of carbs at least, you like sugar with you're weet-bix? You're looking at 135 grams of carbahydrates and that's just for breakfast.

Do you want juice with that? That's another 20-30 grams. (provided you drink only 200-250 mls)

Now the reccommended carb intake for the average person is about 300 grams. That's more than half of it just on breakfast, the issue isn't that half of it is gone after breakfast, it is that 50 per cent of it was used on foods aren't that nutritionally rich, you haven't eaten any fruits or vegetables and you've only eaten one type of whole grain and it's hardly a super food.
 

aqua_duck

Coach
Messages
18,316
Raw rolled oats for me, soaked overnight in water then in the blender with some frozen berries, ice cubes, soy milk and half a scoop of protein powder
 
Top