I was greatly mistaken!
According to a new survey, conducted by Lake Research Partners for Share Our Strength, indicates more than 60 percent of the teachers surveyed say the problem has increased in the past year.  The survey contains highlights of a public opinion survey of 638 kindergartens through eighth grade public school teachers in urban, suburban and rural communities nationwide.

Joshy wants to know…
Can you make a healthy breakfast, even if you can’t afford eggs, fruit, juice AND cereal?

I know a little about what it’s like to go to school hungry. Often there wasn’t anything for breakfast in my home when I was growing up. I dreaded the gym teacher’s nutrition talk. Enviably “THE breakfast” question would be asked. And to my horror, we would be asked to raise their hands when the item we ate for breakfast was named. Most likely, I didn’t eat breakfast at all. Somehow that wasn’t one of the options. I was hoping no one noticed.

Sixty-five percent of teachers say many children rely on school meals as their primary source of nutrition. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, breakfast is served to 11.6 million school children; 74 percent of the breakfasts are free and 8.8 percent are at reduced price. More than 40 percent of teachers say they believe it is a serious problem that children are coming to school hungry because they have not had enough to eat at home. In fact, 61 percent of teachers who perceive this problem purchase food for their classrooms out of their own pockets, spending an average of $25 a month.

Food Inflation
We are in the middle (not the end) of the Great Recession (really a depression). Purchasing food will only get more difficult as inflation increases during the balance of this year. I believe when families receive food stamps, a mandatory session on nutrition and how food stamps can actually feed the family should be required.

Food stamps are meant to be only supplemental to a family’s food budget. We know many times this isn’t the case and food stamps are the only resource for purchasing food. Unfortunately, food stamps often are used to purchase junk and processed foods. The way food stamps can feed a family is when expensive processed foods are avoided and families cook. (Sorry, there’s that four-letter word again…COOK.)

There is no reason a child should go to school without eating. Breakfast is the easiest and most economical meal of the day. Forget about boxed cereals, expensive breakfast sausages or anything which is to be microwaved or comes already prepared. These are budget (and nutrition) busters.

Inexpensive Healthy Breakfasts
Some inexpensive, yet healthy, options for breakfast are oatmeal (any whole grain makes a healthy breakfast, even brown rice), pancakes from scratch and toasted whole grain bread with nut butter. Whole grains are inexpensive nutritious meals. Make enough for several days and reheat on busy mornings. Brown rice keeps fresh for five days, even without refrigeration, covered on the counter. Add fruit, nuts, cinnamon, etc. for variety with whole grain cereal breakfasts.

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Oats have super powers to lower cholesterol: because of soluble fiber. The soluble fiber acts as broom to sweep out cholesterol from the blood. One and half cups of cooked oatmeal provides enough beta-gluten to significantly lower blood cholesterol and heart attack risk.

Instant oatmeal is loaded with sugars and it’s expensive. Instant oatmeal sounds like a time-saver, but it takes only minutes to cook rolled oats. You can make tasty oatmeal breakfasts from rolled oats without the added sugars and save.

Cooking Directions for Rolled Oats

Serves 2:
1¾ cups water
1 cup oats
dash salt

Method: Bring the water and salt to a boil add the oats. Give a quick stir. Reduce heat to low. Don’t stir again; cook 5 minutes or so until all the liquid is absorbed. For thicker oatmeal use less water, for thinner use more water.

Banana Oatmeal
Cook oatmeal according to above directions, add one mashed banana per 2 servings.

Apple Walnut Oatmeal
1) Replace half the water with apple juice or apple sauce.
2) Peel, core, and cut into bite-size pieces, 1 apple for every 2 servings.
3) Cook oatmeal according to above directions.
4) Add a handful of chopped walnuts
5) Dash of cinnamon on top of each bowl of Apple Walnut Oatmeal

Creamy Pink Strawberry Oatmeal
1) Replace water with milk.
2) Pour cooked oatmeal into a blender and process.
3) Add 1/2 cup strawberries and process again.
5) Top with one strawberry slice.

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The breakfast rut is made with simple carbohydrates: white flour pancakes and waffles topped with sugary syrup, most processed cereals, coffee cakes, donuts, bagels, and white bread toast.

When breaking fast, the morning meal should be filled with whole grains and protein. This will help bring your kid’s brain power up to full-speed. Children, who’ve eaten a healthy breakfast concentrate better, solve problems more easily, and have better muscle coordination. Kids are less likely to be overweight, if they eat a healthful breakfast. Because, children, who eat a nourishing breakfast, are less likely to snack on junky foods.

Casey is proud that he can help with breakfast!
Casey’s mom is a professional photographer.
You can see her work ay Mary Beth Graff Photography:
http://www.mbgpics.com/

You can climb out of the breakfast rut in just three steps. Once you’re on the path to whole foods, you’ll find it’s just as easy for kids to make a nutritious breakfast as pouring processed cereal from a box.

1) The first step out of the breakfast rut begins in your pantry and refrigerator. Clear your pantry of sugary cereals, pastries, toaster items, and any thing instant. This will eliminate the temptation to use processed breakfast items, which offer little in the way of real nutrition. A kitchen stocked with whole foods, leads to healthy breakfasts.

When a toaster pop tart isn’t available, you’ll reach for wholesome whole grain bread. If your pantry doesn’t hold processed instant cereals, then you’re more likely to eat nourishing old fashioned rolled oats and cream of wheat. If you don’t have any instant breakfast packets, then you’ll make a healthful breakfast fruit smoothie.

Have tasty nutritious foods on hand for easy breakfasts: Cottage cheese mixed with fruit, a breakfast salad tossed with radishes, celery, cucumbers, top whole-grain waffles and pancakes with applesauce, on really rushed mornings, eat fruit, cheese, juice, and a PB&J sandwich in the car.

2) Then, keep breakfast foods in easy reach for younger children. Place them on the lower shelves in your refrigerator. Have 100 percent fruit juice mixed and ready. If your dishes are stored in upper cabinets, take down what they’ll need for breakfast out and set them on the table for breakfast. Keep fruit within easy reach on the table.

3) The last step out of the breakfast rut is to apply the Boy Scout motto “Be prepared.” On the weekends or your days off, prepare more breakfast than your family can eat. Then place individual servings of pancakes, waffles, French toast, and turkey bacon in baggies and freeze.

Boiled eggs are another healthful breakfast food. They make a fast, but nourishing breakfast that kids can grab on the run. You’ll want to mark hardboiled eggs with a felt-tipped pen, so your kids can easily identify the cooked from raw eggs. With a marker you can draw a smiley face or heart, to make their morning a little cheerier.

You’re out of the breakfast rut and standing on solid nutrition when you teach your kids how to make their own healthy breakfasts. Kids love to do it themselves! Take advantage of summer with a more relaxed morning time schedule. Not only will you be able to set a pattern for busy fall mornings, when your kids at home for the summer break, you’ll be able to involve your them in the entire process.

Kids can easily retrieve the homemade breakfast items you previously prepared or froze and reheat them. Having a toaster oven or a microwave can make the job of reheating nutritious foods easy enough for grade school kids.

You can prepare breakfast items ahead for your children and all they have to do is help themselves in the morning. Premix the ingredients for a fruit smoothie and store in a jar the refrigerator. All they do is shake and pour. Homemade whole-grain oatmeal cookies and a glass of milk are more nutritious than sugary processed cereals. Kids can reheat bowls of brown rice in a toaster oven and top with slices of fruit. Premix egg salad for sandwiches. In the morning, grade school children can spread it on whole-grain bread. Another idea is to prepare a tray of veggies and dipping yogurt sauce. Even leftovers warmed up from dinner make it an interesting and healthy start for your kid’s day.

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After a long night of sleep, your child’s engine is on empty. A healthy breakfast, containing protein and fiber, will get his engine going. Protein and fiber will satisfy your child’s hunger and keep him feeling full until lunchtime. In fact, studies show children who eat breakfast do better in school.

Mornings are when even picky eaters are hungry. Don’t miss this opportunity to fill your child’s tank with whole foods instead of processed foods. Unfortunately, the most important meal of the day, usually consists of highly processed foods, stripped of their nutritional value.

Most kids begin the day with sugared cereals, toaster tarts, instant oatmeal, or liquid breakfast drinks. Whole grain boxed breakfast cereals have been heated to the point most of the nutrients have been destroyed. Pancakes and waffles are usually made with white flour and topped with some form of sugar. Even ”health” bars often contain lots of sugar.

“Top of the mornin’,” quips Flynn.

For those mornings when sausage or bacon is on the menu, you can add nitrates to the list of unhealthy ingredients consumed. All cured meats, including breakfast sausage, bacon, luncheon meats, and hot dogs, contain nitrites and nitrates. Once inside the body, they can form nitrosamines, a cancer-causing chemical. These carcinogenic compounds have been associated with cancer. They have also been linked with leukemia and ADD/ADHD in children.

Children, who have small tummies, and the picky eater, who is consuming limited foods, shouldn’t eat meats containing nitrates. Always look for nitrate-free meats. In addition, these products usually are high in fat, and the fat is where contaminates are stored.

So What Can You Make For Breakfast?
A healthful breakfast doesn’t have to take a lot of time. In fact, most breakfasts take only five minutes to prepare. Make rolled oats, not the instant kind. My favorite is with apples and walnuts, but add any dried fruit or mash a soft fruit like a banana into your oatmeal. Prepare enough for two mornings and refrigerate half for later in the week. All you have to do is add a little more liquid, heat, and stir. Hard-boiled eggs are another breakfast item that can be made in advance of your busy morning. Toast is great, when it’s whole grain. Spread a little butter or fruit-only jelly and you have some sticking power. Left-over brown rice from last night’s dinner can be warmed with milk or chicken broth for a nutritious start to the day.  Add a piece of fruit or yogurt. Fruit smoothies come together in a flash right in your blender. And it takes only a minute to scramble a few eggs. French toast made with whole wheat bread and top with applesauce. Don’t forget blueberries, a super way to start your morning.

Grab and Go
Don’t have time to cook? Then grab and go: Hard-boiled egg or cheese with piece of fruit. Who says that you have to have “breakfast” food? Make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on whole wheat bread. How about an egg salad sandwich or a piece of chicken from last night’s dinner? A handful of nuts, sliced fruit, and a oatmeal cookie (only if you made the cookie yourself with whole grains and honey) will be more nutritious than boxed kids’ cereal.

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Cereals sold as “low fat” or “low sugar” were not lower in calories. Brands touted as “whole grain” did have more fiber, but they had just as much salt, sugar, and fat as other brands and the same calorie content.

Children’s cereals have more sugar, sodium, carbohydrates, and calories per gram than non-children’s cereals. Kids’ cereals have less protein and fiber than other cereals. Sugar accounts for more than one-third of the weight of children’s cereals.

Kids’ cereals are marketed to children, not only on TV but in the grocery store with colorful characters displayed on the front of the package. My rule of thumb is NOT to purchase a product with a cartoon character on it.

Angel knows a healthy breakfast doesn’t come in a cereal box.

I recommend not purchasing kid cereals at all. Once the product is no longer in your pantry, it will be easier to convince your hungry child to eat a healthy breakfast. If you purchase boxed cereals, look for the most nutritious cereal by reading the nutrition label. The sugar content should be less than four grams per serving. Four grams is about one teaspoon of sugar.

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All cured meats, including breakfast sausage, bacon, luncheon meats, and hot dogs, contain nitrites and nitrates. They’re added to processed meats to prevent botulism and enhance the taste and color of the meat. Without nitrates processed meats would be brown, just like cooked hamburger.

Once inside the body, they can form nitrosamines, a cancer-causing chemical. These carcinogenic compounds have been associated with cancer. They have also been linked with leukemia and ADD/ADHD in children.

Between 1980 and 1987, a study conducted in Los Angeles found a relationship between the consumption of certain foods and the risk of leukemia with children under the age of 10. Results indicated that children, who ate an excess of 12 hot dogs per month, had nine times the normal risk of developing childhood leukemia.

Pictured: Zach thinks nitrates are hair-raising scary!

In 2007, researchers in Denver found that children, whose mothers consumed one or more hot dogs per week during pregnancy, had double the risk of developing brain tumors, and children, who consumed one or more hot dogs per week were also at higher risk of brain cancer.

Nitrites are found naturally in many green vegetables, especially spinach, celery, and green lettuce. However, the consumption of vegetables is effective in reducing the risk of cancer. Nitrites found in whole foods are managed differently in the body. It’s the synergy of various compounds, which makes the difference between harmful and healthful. Nitrite containing vegetables also have vitamins C and D, which inhibit the formation of carcinogenic compounds. Therefore, vegetables are quite safe and healthy, and actually reduce your cancer risk.

For health avoid eating meat products with nitrates. Children, who have small tummies, and the picky eater, who is consuming limited foods, shouldn’t eat meats containing nitrates. Always look for nitrate-free meats. In addition, these products usually are high in fat, and the fat is where contaminates are stored.

Food additives are problematic for everyone, but for the child or adult with ADD/ADHD, avoidance of food additives is imperative. There’s sound evidence that food plays an important part in controlling the symptoms of ADD/ADHD. Food additives such as artificial colorings, preservatives, MSG, and nitrates. Of course, avoidance of junk foods, trans fat, and sugar, especially High Fructose Corn Syrup, is also very important.

My daughter, Jenny, was extremely sensitive to food additives, including nitrates. Thirty years ago, her pediatrician thought I was crazy, when I mentioned that food additives made her ADD symptoms worse. Today, parents, who suspect artificial ingredients in food are affecting their childrens’ behavior, can now point to proof. New research, by Jim Stevenson, a professor of psychology at England’s University of Southampton, reported in a British medical journal, that a variety of common food dyes and sodium benzoate, an ingredient in many soft drinks, fruit juices, and salad dressings, causes some children to become more hyperactive than usual. The younger the children, the more they found they negatively responded to the additives.

Be on the lookout for nitrates: All prepackaged lunch meats contain nitrates. If lunch meet is pink it has nitrates. Ask the deli counter clerk to check the nutrition label for nitrates. Some deli meats may be nitrate-free. Frozen turkey breakfast and turkey Italian sausage packaged in a tube usually don’t contain nitrates.

Most pork products (all cured meats, hot dogs, bacon, sausage, pepperoni, salami, etc.) use nitrates to preserve color and freshness. Look for alternatives. Incorporate easy-to-make egg, tuna, and chicken salad sandwiches in your lunches. Of course, the standby peanut butter and jelly sandwich is easy and always nitrate-free.

When you have a craving for a hot dog, be sure to buy a brand that doesn’t contain nitrates. These are usually found in whole food stores. Or when a delivery pizza is the answer to dinner, order a veggie or hamburger pizza, leaving off pepperoni, ham, and other processed meats with nitrates.

Take the time to teach your children to enjoy whole foods. If you set good eating habits from the beginning with your kids, you’ll avoid ever having a picky eater. Learning to eat a healthy diet starting early in childhood will decrease the likelihood of your child becoming obese and getting diabetes, heart disease, or cancer. I discuss this more in detail in Baby Bites: Transforming a Picky Eater into a Healthy Eater.

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10-minute prep time to make pie crust
Pastry Wheat Crust
This recipe is adapted from my friend Carole who is the best pie lady in Colorado!

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees
1¼ cup whole-wheat pastry flour
½ cup butter or coconut oil
¼ cup very cold water
¼ teaspoon salt
In a food processor:
1. Mix flour, salt and shortening together until you have an even mixture of crumbs.
2. Add cold water and mix until there’s a consistent dough ball. If time permits put in the refrigerator, until cool throughout, if not proceed to next step.
3. Toss a little flour onto your working surface. Try not to handle dough too much, press dough into a flattened ball. Roll into a 12 inch circle with a rolling pin.
4. Place rolled out dough and fit in pie pan.
5. Pierce the dough several times with a fork

Go to step one for the Sunday Quiche, then add ingredients and bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes until a knife inserted into the quiche comes out clean.

Mix 1 cup whole-wheat flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder (1 teaspoon if you live at a high altitude), ½ teaspoon salt in a bowl. In another bowl add 1 tablespoon honey (or sugar), 2 eggs, 2 tablespoons coconut oil, about 1 cup milk (add more milk for thinner pancakes)

Add wet the ingredients to dry and mix well. Melt a pat of coconut oil on a hot griddle. Then spoon pancake batter on griddle. Turn pancakes once and cook until light brown.

Serve with fruit jelly or a little maple syrup.