Healthy Breakfast for Children

As a mother of ten children, it's always been tempting to fall back on processed cereals, granola bars and little packs of oatmeal as breakfast for my hungry, early rising brood. My eyes don't always open quite as quickly as theirs do and my energy level sages when the two year old wakes before six, declaring he's hungry.

But it was this same two year old that began my quest for natural, healthy meals. Our adopted baby was born to a drug addicted mother, and we soon realized he may have some problems left over from the drugs he was exposed to in the womb. As I searched the internet trying to find ways to help my much loved son, I kept coming across the same advice: diet has a lot to do with the behavior of children with emotional troubles.

I learned that corn syrup is a bigger problem than sugar. The artificial flavorings, artificial colorings, and preservatives added to processed foods can cause a child with chemical sensitivities to spin out of control. As I studied the ingredients on the products I had always bought, I found that almost every packaged food contains at least some of these things.

So what is a busy mother to do? The answer was simple; I was going to have to make almost everything from scratch. And that included breakfast.

I gasped quite a bit when I saw the prices of the organic, all natural ingredients I needed to make the healthier meals, but I found that because I was no longer buying processed food, which was a lot pricier than I realized, my grocery bill actually went down rather than up.

We are lucky to live on twelve acres in the country, and I have fresh, free range chicken eggs. I also decided to raise a few chicks as meat, because the chickens we buy in the store are usually injected with things my baby can't eat. Although butchering chickens isn't exactly fun, it's doable, and the chicken is delicious. Organic eggs and chickens can also be found in most grocery stores.

I found that margarine is not good for us, so I began to buy real butter. A friend sells raw cow's milk, so we get that, too.

I began to buy oatmeal in the big round boxes. I buy all fruit jellies, with sugar rather than corn syrup.

It hasn't been hard, after all. A very simple breakfast is oatmeal, which only takes five minutes to cook, with a spoonful of all fruit jelly. My children like it every bit as much as the little oatmeal packs, and I feel better knowing their food is not full of additives.

Eggs cooked in real butter, served with fresh homemade wheat bread kneaded with the bread machine I bought at Walmart is another good breakfast. Sometimes I add a little all natural white cheese to the eggs, since my son cannot have the yellow coloring in most cheddar cheese.

And by far their very favorite breakfast is smoothies. I buy bags of frozen fruit and put some in the blender, along with milk, orange or apple juice. I might add yogurt, and sometimes vanilla. My son starts out every morning asking for a "moofie" and I'm happy to make him one. I always have some, too.

We sometimes have smoothies for snacks, and for these I sometimes add natural ice cream or seltzer water to make them fizzy. Adding lemon and lime juice, a little sugar and seltzer water as a home made 7up is very good.

Going on an all natural diet had many benefits for our family. Several of my children had problems with sinuses and runny noses, and those miraculously cleared up within days of our new diet. One child quit wetting the bed at night, and the son we did this for is a calmer boy whose speech took off, was quickly potty trained, and became more affectionate.

Switching your family to a healthier, natural diet is not as hard as you might imagine it to be. This busy, homeschooling mother of ten did it, and is very glad she did!