Carb Research and a Yogurt Question

Thanks so much for all the great comments you've been leaving!  It's really inspiring to me that so many of you have made food switches and can offer hints and tips on what works and what doesn't.  I was particularly interested in so many comments talking about cereal and bread products.  Both of those are a huge weakness for me.  I could absolutely live on bread, and cereal is my go-to I'm-still-hungry-after-supper snack.  So while in the store doing my grocery shopping yesterday, I decided to take a look and see what I could find out.  (P.S. My shopping took so long because I was reading labels.  Research now, autonomy later.)

"Boring" cereals (all of which are in my cabinet)- Rice Krispies, Corn Flakes, Shredded Wheat (plain)- are all pretty decent, though most contain some kind of sugar or malt.  Cheerios, one of my all-time favorites, was actually pretty disappointing, having some additives in them.  I ended up buying Grape Nuts, which I haven't had in the longest time, and plain oats and steel-cut oats for oatmeal.

 

Grape Nuts

Homemade oatmeal seems to be the best choice as far as knowing what goes into it, though I am glad to have some ready-made choices for Gus.  I suppose I could make my own cereal blend of loose flakes, oats, nuts, and dried fruit- a homemade Great Grains of sorts.  It's just hard to know what's baked into those flakes!

I did find a great slow cooker recipe for oatmeal using the steel cut oats, which take a longer time to cook.  You cook this one overnight so it's ready for you in the morning.  (What genius thought of cooking while you're sleeping?  I would never think outside the box like that.)  It is a little bland as it stands but a little drizzle of maple syrup helps immensely.  Read it here.

Speaking of syrup, even though I said I wasn't going to waste food, I did pitch the rest of the fake syrup because the label was just so bad.  I also bought a bag of this sugar which is less processed than regular white sugar.  It's sort of like Sugar in the Raw but much, much finer.  For the price, I probably won't use it for baking, but I drink a lot of tea and I like to put in a small spoonful of sugar.

For other carb sources, I pinned several recipes for crackers that I want to try and I've been pondering a bread machine.  (Maybe for Christmas?)  I love homemade bread but I don't always have the time to do all the prep work it takes.

I'm also curious on the readers' opinion about yogurt.  Every yogurt I've picked up has natural flavor in it so I'm not sure where to go on that.  I know yogurt is good for you and the kids love it so I don't want to take that away from them.  Lately I've been buying mostly Chobani and Yoplait Simplait, the latter of which is delicious and has only 6 ingredients.  Those of you who have cut out the weird ingredients, do you still eat yogurt?  Is there a better brand?  Should we just continue to eat it anyway?