I made hot breakfast for my kids every day before school, it varied every day from eggs to French toast to oatmeal or another hot cereal, all cooked on top of the stove, not in the microwave or toaster. I don’t exaggerate. They never ate cold cereal because I never bought it. While they ate breakfast, I packed their lunches which was usually a sandwich, chips, cookies and a piece of fruit or carrots if I had them. My mornings were busy.
Our staple was usually either a big pot of oatmeal (not the instant kind), or a big cookie sheet of cinnamon or cheese toast. My mom had to make breakfast every morning for 10 kids and our dad, so it had to be things which were inexpensive, filling, and could be quickly made in quantities.
Weekends were for pancakes, fired eggs, etc. Or my dad would make beignets from scratch.
My mom did the weekday cooking-meatloaf, hamburgers, a pot of soup, those kinds of things. My dad was an excellent Cajun/Creole ccok, so he did the weekend cooking, which was things like gumbo, jumbalaya, and pork roast.
And we never, never ate cold packaged cereal, had anything to drink except water, ice tea, or milk right from a cow owned by a neighbor from whom we bought it. No chips or such for snacks-my dad kept a garden, which we helped to work in-corn, beans, cucumbers, the usual. When we came home from school, there was a bushel basket of cucumbers by the back door, and we’d grab one, peel it, salt it, and eat it like a candy bar.
My sisters and I (all 6 of us) would collect bottles to return to split one or two rootbeers between us about once or twice a month. That was a major treat.
And we were all healthy as horses :)