Healthy Breakfast on the Go: Reality vs Fantasy

Breakfast commercials often feature smiling families sitting down enjoying a freshly made meal, or at least slurping down a bowl of cereal, the kids with their hair combed and the mom in full make up.

The reality in our house is screaming over lost shoes, misplaced homework and coffee that just won’t drip through fast enough. The dog needs to pee, the litter box has to be scooped, a soccer uniform is dirty and no one picked up the dry cleaning.

Are we having fun yet?

So my kids grab whatever they can and run out the door.  Sometimes I have planned ahead and made relatively healthy muffins that they can pop in the microwave, but that is the kind of advance planning that would have also foreseen the dirty uniform, dry cleaning slips and overdue library books.

And maybe picked up some more coffee beans.

But for those crazy mornings, Garden Lites comes to the rescue. A new line of delicious frozen vegetable muffins, Veggie Muffins hit the trifecta - they are tasty, healthy and portable.

The muffins are also gluten free, low in calories and a good source of fiber.

And they take 35 seconds to heat up in the microwave- faster than you can say," did you find your homework, remember your gym shoes, take your lunch, bring an umbrella and oh no, step over here and avoid the puppy’s accident."

Consider the zucchini chocolate muffins. The first two ingredients? Zucchini, then carrots. One muffin has 50% of the RDA of vitamin A, and 40% of the iron. And they taste great.

My daughter loved these and I had to fight her for one post workout (much more satisfying than a granola bar).

The corn muffins don’t have quite as impressive a nutritional profile - but they are also not loaded with crap.

There are also a veggie berry oat and zucchini banana chocolate chip, both with zucchini as the first ingredient, and a carrot berry with carrots at the helm.

Veggie Muffins are sold frozen, but take about 4 hours to thaw, so they are great snacks for a road trip, or for teens who can’t stomach food first thing in the morning.