Breakfast Cereals

jma

I recently read an article about cereals being very unhealthy - actually, they were listed in the top 10 unhealthiest processed foods.

Common sense would tell me that certain types of cereal are unhealthy - maybe lucky charms or coco pops. But what about other cereals like weetabix, corn flakes, muesli?

Also, what makes them so unhealthy exactly? Is it just the high sugar content? Calories? Low in nutrients? GMO?

Are there any specific cereals that are healthy?

Mellor

They are energy dense. A proper sized serving of cereal is about 30g*, which is a tiny amount. I think its about a cup of cereal. Who eats cereal in a cup. Most kids are eating 2 or 3 servings at a time.

A lot of this energy comes from sugars. Which might be obvious in the case of sugar puffs, frosties, lucky charms and other ones that taste full of sugar. Which are maybe 30-35% sugar.
But even Bran Flakes are 20% sugar. How they get that much sugar in and taste that bad I don't know. Special k is up to 25% sugar.

Are there any specific cereals that are healthy?

The only two I consider to be ok are oats (porridge) and original flavour weetabix.

cosmic

All I eat for brekkie is oatbran. And I don't want to ever eat anything else! I love my oatbran.
My OH has taken to eating Shredded Wheat though. Ingredients listed are 100% whole grain wheat. This has me curious. No added sugar or salt apparently. Seems alright to me. Anyone got any thoughts on this? Just wondering.

rubadub

Sugar puffs are showing as 35% sugar now on tesco.ie -they were 48-49% at some stage.

Some new ones nowadays really take the piss, because they are new and in the cereal aisle people fall for the marketing crap. If you got a mulitvitamin and crushed it up into a pack of malteasers its basically the same as what these guys do. So you can legitimately say it has 50% of your RDA of vitamin XYZ. You can also legitimately put things like "only 1g fat per serving", since as mentioned the servings quoted are miniscule, and there is no room for any fat in the product as there is so much sugar.

Under tescos cereals header there are these sections

Better For You Cereals
Breakfast Snacks
Cereal Bars
Childrens
Crunchy Cereals
Hot Cereals
Traditional Cereals

Under the "better for you" is Kelloggs Chocolate Caramel Krispie Square 4 X 36G

Toasted Rice Cereal (26%) (Rice, Sugar, Salt, Glucose-Fructose Syrup, Barley Malt Flavouring, Niacin, Iron, Vitamin B6,Riboflavin (B2), Thiamin (B1), Folic Acid, Vitamin B12) ,Sweetened Condensed Skimmed Milk (Skimmed Milk, Sugar) ,Chocolate Flavour Coating (12%) (Sugar, Vegetable Oil, Whole Milk Powder, Fat Reduced Cocoa Powder, Milk Whey Powder ,Emulsifier {Soy Lecithin}, Flavouring ,Fructose ,Glucose Syrup ,Milk Chocolate Pieces (10%) (Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Whole Milk Powder, Cocoa Mass, Emulsifier {Soy Lecithin}) ,Vegetable Oil ,Invert Sugar Syrup ,Sugar ,Humectant (Glycerol) ,Gelling Agent (Agar) ,Flavourings ,Stabiliser (Disodium Phosphate) ,Emulsifier (Soy Lecithin) ,Antioxidant (E320)

there is loads of other stuff that should be sitting alongside the twixes & mars bars.

Below is crunchy nut cornflakes

Maize,Brown Sugar (Sugar, Molasses) ,Peanuts (7%) ,Sugar ,Honey (2%) ,Barley Malt Flavouring ,Salt ,Vitamins & Minerals: Niacin, Iron, Vitamin B6, Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin), Vitamin B1 (Thiamin), Folic Acid, Vitamin B12

by having various different forms of sugar (in bold) they can legitimately not have sugar as high on the list of ingredients as it should be. i.e. they are shown in order of greatest.

Sangre

Mellor wrote: »

But even Bran Flakes are 20% sugar. How they get that much sugar in and taste that bad I don't know.

The incredibly high content salt content.

SunnyDub1

It actually annoys me when I see the likes of special K etc getting away with and being allowed to advertise themselves as "healthy" and having all this "sign up now for your special K skinny jeans diet etc etc " :mad:

Truth be told a bowl of special K (like most cereals) contains the same amount of sugar (if not more) as a chocolate bar.

Danny_Lennon

cosmic wrote: »

All I eat for brekkie is oatbran. And I don't want to ever eat anything else! I love my oatbran.
My OH has taken to eating Shredded Wheat though. Ingredients listed are 100% whole grain wheat. This has me curious. No added sugar or salt apparently. Seems alright to me. Anyone got any thoughts on this? Just wondering.

I really think everyone should be avoiding wheat.

Gluten is the most obvious problem. New research is constantly emerging linking gluten to all sorts of diseases outside of Coeliac (autoimmune, CVD, cancer, autism, Alzeimers. etc.) as well as showing the high prevalence of non-Coeliacs who have a gluten sensitivity.

Aside from the gluten issue, wheat contains a lot of anti-nutrients that make it difficult for the gut to absorb many of the micronutrients it does contain. Wheat isn't all that nutrient dense anyhow, thus the reason why most cereals are heavily fortified.

IMO I'd put wheat right up there with refined sugar in terms of foods that people should avoid.

pervertedcoffee

Guys, as someone who adores grains (bread (soda being my fav), cereals (breakfast or otherwise), etc) is there any hope for me at all? Especially at breakfast when there's nothing like a bowl of cereal or a slice of bread/toast to get me going.

I was just going to ask if anyone knew of any low sugar alternatives but then I realised, even if not sugary all those grains are super bad foods.

SunnyDub1

pervertedcoffee wrote: »

Guys, as someone who adores grains (bread (soda being my fav), cereals (breakfast or otherwise), etc) is there any hope for me at all? Especially at breakfast when there's nothing like a bowl of cereal or a slice of bread/toast to get me going.

I was just going to ask if anyone knew of any low sugar alternatives but then I realised, even if not sugary all those grains are super bad foods.

Have you tired having oats or eggs for breakfast instead ?

pervertedcoffee

SunnyDub1 wrote: »

Have you tired having oats or eggs for breakfast instead ?

I make Japanese omelettes quite a lot, though they have soy sauce and sugar as ingredients - I must try a 'naked' one this weekend!

Are oats ok? I must see what can be done with those. I'm a bit of a grain fanatic.

badnewsbear

Hi porridge with natural yoghurt and fruit (kiwi, banana or blueberries) . Have it every morning and is yum

Magenta

Excellent documentary on cereal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T34qIX1wZ08

AK333

badnewsbear wrote: »

Hi porridge with natural yoghurt and fruit (kiwi, banana or blueberries) . Have it every morning and is yum

+ 1 but I add in soya milk as well. Keeps me full for hours and its delicious

Danny_Lennon

AK333 wrote: »

+ 1 but I add in soya milk as well. Keeps me full for hours and its delicious

Why soya?

badnewsbear

I don't add any milk, I don't mind soya cream but have not converted to soya milk just yet. Porridge does keep you full for the morning

AK333

Danny_Lennon wrote: »

Why soya?

Its an age thing

I'm a female of a certain age and i've been told, no scientific facts, that its good for ladies over 45 :rolleyes: - okay, I heard its good for menopausal symptoms, of which there are many and to be honest, it may be true cos I feel pretty good.

Also, I don't eat any other dairy (apart from the yoghurt at breakfast), just my choice, no dietary reasons and my breakfast is tasty, so I can recommend it. I have the unsweetened version

jma

What about muesli / Alpen (no added sugar version)? Good / bad / OK?

I like porridge. Usually do half water, half milk. But I get a bit sick of it when I eat it for too many days in a row...

SunnyDub1

jma wrote: »

What about muesli / Alpen (no added sugar version)? Good / bad / OK?

I like porridge. Usually do half water, half milk. But I get a bit sick of it when I eat it for too many days in a row...

Muesli - all depends on what's in it.
Aplen no added sugar still contains 6-7g sugar in a 40g serving.

You can add stuff to the porridge and cook it different ways so you don't get sick of it.
Add fruit, nuts, yogurt, oat pancakes, add an egg white, loads you can do with porridge oats tbh.

rubadub

Muesli is dense and very easy to overeat, some might see this as an advantage though. With no added sugar it can be high in natural sugar from the dried fruit. Museli is oats nuts & dried fruit, you can just add more uncooked porridge oats to "dilute" it down.