Primetime on RTE- unhealthy breakfast cereals

rubadub

Anybody see the bit on cereals on primetime last night? I just caught it midway. Had some woman, probably a nutritionalist, on. They were showing reports on all the sugar etc in cereals and how they were trying to market them as healthy.

Had some guy representing companies like kelloggs, it looked as though he was biting his tounge to stop laughing at the bull**** he was spouting. The report was listing things per 100g, which is the best way since it is equivalent to %. But he was saying they used 100g as a portion size, and that the average portion people eat is 1/3 that. That portion size crap drives me mad, all kelloggs would have to do is say 10g is a portion and then it looks low calorie. The woman said she got her clients to pour out a normal cereal amount and it was usually 50-60g. This is definitely the case. 30-35g barely covers the bottom of the bowl.

Porridge came out as the most healthy option, unsurprisingly. Weetabix was next mentioned,- I thought others would be as I think weetabix still has lots of sugar.

daveirl

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Beelzebub

This was in the news recently, regarding the higher amounts of sugar and salt in our cereals as opposed to the equivalent U.S. ones and the cereal companies said they were going to reduce the amounts somewhat I think.

Basically if you want to stay healthy, stay away from the heavily processed cereals.
As the woman said there are other options besides cereals for breakfast anyway.
I usually have oatmeal though, and sometimes I would have muesli with no added sugar etc.

Link to the video:
http://www.rte.ie/news/primetime/

Newaglish

I presume the best ones to eat would be Porridge, Muesli and then maybe Shredded Wheat?

I wouldn't really eat any othert cereals though as they mostly come coated in sugar and chocolate and stuff!

Are you sure there's more salt/sugar in our cereals than in US ones? When I was in the US I found some of the crap they sold as breakfast cereals to be absolutely shocking (read: Lucky charms!)

Dublin14

rubadub wrote:

Anybody see the bit on cereals on primetime last night?

I normally eat Cornflakes - any idea where they feature on the list......??

mloc

Porridge, Shredded Wheat, Muesli and other whole grain additive free cereals are your best bet.

Stuff like Special K etc and other "diet" or "low fat" cereals tend to be crap, loaded with sugar and salt, and little fiber.

foxyboxer

the portion size incorporates the sugar in the milk no?
from memory, 2 weetabix with milk has about 6g of sugar (most of it from the milk)

Pherekydes

All from slow coach's kitchen:

Weetabix: 4.4% sugar
Start: 26%
Bran flakes: 22% (Now there's a surprise)
Rice Krispies: 10%
Special K with peach and apricot: 24%
Odlums 4 health: 1.1%
Jordans 3 in one: 19.6%
Crunchy nut feast: 25%
Corn flakes: 8%




What? There're lots of kids in the house, ok? They're all skinny. I only eat the bran flakes with wheatgerm and skimmed milk.

t-ha

daveirl wrote:

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Thought this was worth repeating. Anything with alot of fruit in it will have a fair bit of sugar from the fruit.

rubadub

daveirl wrote:

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4.4% as mentioned, a lot lower than I imagined, maybe I am thinking of when I was a kid and used to make mountains of sugar on them :eek:

2 weetabix with milk has about 6g of sugar (most of it from the milk)

Yeah, skimmed milk has more sugar than lilt.

Sugar puffs were not on the list, think they are 48%, any more and they could drop the "puffs" from the name,

blah

Just looked at my Muesli and it's 25% sugar
Time to get myself some shredded wheat or muesli without added sugar!

tunney

Buy the oat flakes, rice flakes, seeds, millet, nuts, dried fruit all separately and make your own muesli -some days you want more of one thing than another!

Kinetic^

http://www.flahavans.com/product/porridgeoats/

That's what I eat, yummy with choc whey mixed in.:)

Pherekydes

rubadub wrote:

Yeah, skimmed milk has more sugar than lilt.

When skimmed milk says 'sugar' it doesn't mean white, granulated sugar. There is no added sugar or sweetener in milk. The sugar in milk is lactose.

Soft drinks, on the other hand, do have added white, granulated sugar.

daveirl

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daveirl

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Kinetic^

daveirl wrote:

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Stop trying to justify your Pepsi addiction

Vegeta

daveirl wrote:

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Had an arguement in work with people the other day. Doesn't sugar (not matter where its from) not have the same effects on the body. Open to correction here. Is it correct to have the opinion that there is no good sugar

For example I was reading on wikipedia about sucrose (glucose and fructose) and it said that frucose itself had the same effects on the body as HFCS from soft drinks.

So can you tell me why one type of sugar is worse than any other?

CerebralCortex

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daveirl

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Vegeta

Cool that is pretty much spot on with my line of thinking anyway.

sugar is sugar is sugar.

I barely eat anything with added sugar or perverted natural foods left with a lot of surgar in them but I don't avoid whole fruit or milk etc because at least they have some decent benefits.

Wibbs

Fructose as a sugar appears to be more damaging than either sucrose or glucose. The main reason it's used is economic. Fructose from corn syrup is far cheaper to produce and as it's sweeter to the taste the food producers can use less. It's a win win all around. For them at least.

It's metabolised in the body in a different way to sucrose and glucose. It was thought that fructose had less of an effect as other sugars, because ingesting it doesn't release as much insulin as the other sugars. It seems that's not the only way to judge it. It is metabolised by the liver in a different way and excessive consumption(which is easy enough nowadays) causes triglycerides to rise(not good). Rather than bing converted in the body to glucose, it's removed by the liver or it's converted in the liver to fat and in excess amounts can cause fatty liver and the beginnings of cirrhosis. The guy in "Supersize me" came down with quite serious liver problems a couple of weeks into his diet. That was blamed by many on the the high level of fructose(among other things). It can raise cholesterol, insulin resistance and because it doesn't release leptin in the body like other sugars it can lead to weight gain.

If you're eating fructose in the form of fruit, the amounts are smaller, there are co factors that help the body digest and use it and so long as you're not surviving on fruit year round, you can't really go wrong.

On that basis sugar is not sugar is not sugar.

Long winded read but...
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/76/5/911

I would be a porridge man myself. I love the way cereals like special K supposed to help lose weight(as part of a calorie controlled diet :rolleyes: ) often contain more calories than other cereals.

You can sell anything, especially if you put some 16 year old who lives on lettuce on the cover.

Vegeta

Wibbs wrote:

Fructose as a sugar appears to be more damaging than either sucrose or glucose. The main reason it's used is economic. Fructose from corn syrup is far cheaper to produce and as it's sweeter to the taste the food producers can use less. It's a win win all around. For them at least.

Isn't fructose a component of sucrose though?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucrose

rubadub

Slow coach wrote:

When skimmed milk says 'sugar' it doesn't mean white, granulated sugar. There is no added sugar or sweetener in milk. The sugar in milk is lactose.

Soft drinks, on the other hand, do have added white, granulated sugar.

Yep I was never saying it had added sugar, but some people are under the illusion that skimmed milk is almost like diet coke and calorie free. Skim milk has more protein and higher sugar levels than regular whole milk, I think about 45kcal per 100ml compared to about 65kcal per 100ml for whole milk. And some people would never have thought there was any natural sugar in milk at all. Though I would still think skim milk is far better for you as it is very low in saturated fat and the calcium is said to reduce absorbed fats too.

hunnymonster

some very simple introductory material for carbohydrate science



the basics of what a carbohydrate ie
[SIZE=-1]www.casper.organ.su.se/chochem/RS1-General.ppt

carbohydrate metabolism flow chart
http://www.uwsp.edu/chemistry/tzamis/365f00pdfs/carbometgeneral.pdf [/SIZE]



and a lot more detail to make your head hurt
http://www.manet.uiuc.edu/pathways.php#Carbohydrate%20Metabolism