10 Easy and Nutritious Breakfast Ideas For Picky Eaters

Breakfast starts the day. From smoothies and waffles, to eggs, pancakes, and french toast - our ideas will help you make simple breakfast foods more special and get the day going on the right foot.

Cereal with milk:

Breakfast Pizza

Have two or three acceptable cereal choices. Your children will feel in control if you let them pick which bowl they like and show you their choice of cereal. There are lots of options for mix-ins to make it extra special: bananas, fresh or dried berries, honey, almonds, raisins. You can also mix cereal with yogurt or chocolate milk. If you have concerns about all the sugary cereal on the market - just don't buy them!

Oatmeal:

The trick here again is to offer choices. Those instant oatmeal variety packs work great. You can say: "Would you like blueberry, strawberry or peach oatmeal today?" To make it extra yummy and nutritious top with yogurt, apple sauce, fruit, berries, maple syrup or honey. Just a few colorful sprinkles on top will make it look like a treat!

Eggs:

Most kids like eggs, and there are lots of choices. You can ask your kids if they want an omelet, scrambled eggs, or sunny side up. You can serve eggs with bacon or sausage, on top of toasts, bagels, croissants or english muffins. Eggs also go well with lots of cheeses and cold cuts. They are yummy, easy to make, and will keep the kids full and happy for hours.

Pancakes:

Pancakes are very quick and versatile. If you are in a rush, put some frozen pancakes in the toaster, top with maple syrup and voila. If you are taking things slow on a weekend morning, have kids help mix the batter and get creative with the fillings. Chopped apples, cranberries, peaches, raisins, sprinkles, chocolate chips, even marshmallows - they are all great! Top with your favorite jam or maple syrup and enjoy. Make sure to compliment the chefs!

Waffles and Drinkable Yogurt:

For a very easy and healthy breakfast on the run, waffles are the best. Toast some waffles and grab a drinkable yogurt with a straw. It is nutritious, not messy, and can be eaten quickly on your way to the car, at your desk at work, or while waiting for class to start. Kids will be happy if they can choose from two flavors of yogurt or waffles.

French toast:

French toast is everybody's favorite and is also a good use for old bread. It does take a few minutes, but it will smell and taste delicious and will put a smile on everybody's face. With a little bit of milk, eggs, cinnamon, and brown sugar, any old bread will have a new life. Experiment with french bread, raisin bread, challah bread for an awesome french toast. For a very special treat try french toast with bacon!

Bagels with anything:

This is a fast, easy and nutritious breakfast with lots of ways to personalize. Would you like your bagel toasted, would you like plain or strawberry cream cheese? Kids enjoy mini-bagels with flavored cream cheese, but cream cheese is only one of many toppings - try peanut butter and jelly, hummus, salmon, egg salad, tuna salad, cheese or turkey. For little kids, it is a good idea to cut into smaller pieces to minimize the mess.

Smoothies:

Smoothies can be very easy and nutritious. Bananas, regular or chocolate milk, yogurt, ice cream, orange juice, honey, strawberries, blueberries, peanut butter - whatever is in season and whatever is in the fridge can go inside the smoothie. Blend for 30 seconds and you are energized and ready to face the day! Kids love them!

Muffins:

Baking muffins are a great project to do with the kids on a weekend morning. You get to spend quality time together, everybody gets a chance to tweak the recipe to their taste and the house will smell awesome. In addition, muffins always come out right and taste good most of the time.

Donuts, pop-tarts, breakfast pastries:

There is nothing wrong with an occasional breakfast pastry. So what if it has a lot of sugar and fat? It also has protein and carbohydrates and lots of energy for an exciting day. A weekend or a holiday morning can be made extra special if first thing in the morning everybody goes to a bakery and picks a pastry of their choice and then goes out for a picnic in a park, beach, or a backyard.

If you are running late you can always grab something to eat on the road -- poptart, banana, granola bar, an orange. Relax and have fun with breakfast, don't stress out about it and pretty soon it will become kids' most favorite meal of the day!

10 Easy and Nutritious Breakfast Ideas For Picky Eaters

Yelena Lipovetskaya is a mom of two beautiful girls, 2 year old Veronica and 5 year old Sasha. She lives in sunny Santa Barbara, CA. Read more of her parenting articles at http://www.ColorfulChildhood.com and visit Yelena's on-line store of high-quality made in USA colorful products for children at http://www.ColorfulChildhoodStore.com.

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Breakfast and Snack Ideas for Picky Eaters

Many of our readers ask, "How do I get my kids to eat? They are so picky and I've run out of ideas..."

I think it's in a kid's nature to be picky. It's funny that kids will frown upon anything new. Our children will eat the same thing almost every day and then one day say, "I don't like sloppy Joe's". Our oldest son eats pizza but does not like sausage pizza. One day recently, he tried the sausage and loved it. He said that he loved the little meatballs. When Mike told him it was good to see him eat sausage, he suddenly wouldn't eat it. Later, we decided it was better to let him call them meatballs if that's what it took to get him to eat it! Let this be a lesson to you - If you give the kids zucchini bread, just tell them that it is "bread"! ;-)

Breakfast Pizza

Kids eating habits could send a family to the poor house! Between pop-tarts, fruit chews, juices boxes and containers of cool applesauce it would be easy to spend the entire month's grocery budget in one week. Here are some tips to help you find something they will eat while hanging on to some of that cash in your pocket.

Breakfast:

Are you being squeezed? - The USDA recommends two 8 oz. (1 cup) glasses of milk per day for a child. If you give your kids more than two cups a day, everything over the 2 cups is just calories, and expensive calories at that. The same is true of juice. The USDA recommends 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day for kids. Did you know that for children under age five, 3/4 cup of juice is one serving of fruit? How often do you fill a glass to the top with juice for your child only to find that the child doesn't drink most of it? Limit the amount of juice served to one or two small glasses a day and serve the rest of their fruit and vegetables in whole form. Whole fruits are more healthy for them than juice.

French Toast Sticks - After cooking french toast, cut each piece into 4 strips. Kids love to dip these in syrup.

Present oatmeal in a fancy glass such as a sundae dish. Place some granola, fruit, honey, brown sugar or nuts on top.

Stir any of the following into oatmeal:

sugar cinnamon and sugar brown sugar butter or margarine molasses maple syrup applesauce chopped apples dried apples raisins berries bananas chopped peaches jam or jelly plain or fruit yogurt wheat germ dark brown sugar and 1 drop of maple extract makes oatmeal taste just like the store bought instant oatmeal
Snack Ideas:

Have a snack sitting at the kitchen table for the kids when they come home from school. This way they won't be grouchy in the afternoon from being hungry. This will also prevent them from digging though the kitchen cabinets looking for something themselves and messing up your neat, well-organized pantry. It is also the perfect time for you to sit and visit with them about their day at school.

To discourage bad snack habits, don't buy unhealthy snacks or keep them in the house.

Present your snacks with a plate, place mat, napkin and maybe a flower from the garden. This way your snacks always look inviting.

Have jars sitting on the counter with sunflower seeds, raisins, granola, prunes or peanuts for the children. If they see healthy snacks they're more likely to want them.

Try these snacks on your kids:

Fresh fruit Hard-boiled eggs Apples, cut into quarters, with core removed Popcorn balls Popcorn Bagels Muffins Dried apples or bananas Breadsticks Oranges, peeled and quartered Pumpkin bread Banana bread Zucchini bread Bananas Crackers and cheese Frozen grapes Veggies with ranch dressing Celery sticks, spread with peanut butter Cherry tomatoes Cheese Strawberry leather Cookies Puddings Yogurt Popsicles Homemade granola bars Beef jerky Pretzels Tortillas with cream cheese Peanut butter snacks Yogurt with fruit or wheat germ added Milk Chocolate milk Cocoa Creamy Orange Shake Milk shake Fruit shakes Apples, quartered and cored with 1 tsp. peanut butter on each quarter Bananas sliced in half and spread with peanut butter Bread or toast cut into quarters and spread with jelly, jam, peanut butter, spiced honey or honey butter Crackers spread with peanut butter and jelly or jam Place some peanut butter and honey on a pancake and roll up for a snack. This is great for leftover pancakes.

Breakfast and Snack Ideas for Picky Eaters

Tawra Kellam is the publisher of http://www.LivingOnADime.com, a web site dedicated to teaching families personal finance, frugal living and homemaking skills. In 5 years, Tawra and her husband paid off ,000 personal debt on an average income of ,000 per year.

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