Breakfast Choices

Breakfast can get expensive quick - for instance, if your kids eat poptarts, they cost about $2.50 for a box of 8, and let's face it, since they come 2 in a package your serving size is 2 even tough the package says the serving size is 1 (at about 300 calories per 1) - so anyway you get 4 servings of poptarts for $2.50 which makes them cost about .63 per serving.  Now if poptarts were a nutrient dense, filling and lasting breakfast, it would be okay - just a little on the pricey side.  Now let's look at some other options:

• Eggs - currently $3 for 18 = .17 per egg, full of protein and other vitamins and only about 70 calories each, and oh, by the way, they are nature made not chemically concocted - although that can be debated a little depending on your egg supplier - I get mine from local farmers, but still a regular grocery store industrially laid egg is closer to as God intended than a poptart ;)
• Oatmeal - about $3 for the 42 oz round box (not the instant stuff) = .10 per serving (1/2 cup dry which equals almost a full cup cooked), and 30 servings per package.  A complex carbohydrate powerhouse, minimally processed, few if any chemicals added
• Pancakes - the homemade kind are cheap as dirt, they cost about .65 per recipe and one recipe feeds more than one person, and of course, the homemade kind are less polluted by stuff you can't pronounce
• Muffins - there again, the homemade kind are about .75 per recipe and one recipe makes 12 muffins, and you can feed several people on those also
• Cheese toast, waffles, biscuits - CHEAP> CHEAP> CHEAP!!!

The best options, I think is to mix and match.  Serve each child a scrambled egg with a side of pancake, muffin or oatmeal.  The next day, give them cheese toast or something simple like that on your leftover homemade bread (use real cheese of course).

My kids rarely eat boxed cereal or poptarts, or anything like that.  We eat homemade pancakes, biscuits, muffins, waffles, cheese toast, etc.  They enjoy the occasional cereal treat, but that's what it is, a treat, not a daily staple.  And while my kids are realtively picky eaters, they do well with breakfast, and that makes me happy since it's the meal that carries them through their busiest part of the day and the part of the day most of their intense learning takes place.