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What's in your cereal bowl?

8/14/2013

7 Comments

 
My name is Jillian and I am a recovering cereal addict.  Before I started drinking Shakeology, I filled my bowl up with cereal every morning.  Most of the time, it was with "healthy cereals" - puffed rice, honey nut cheerios, etc, you know, the ones with the least amount of calories per serving?  I was a big fan of mixing cereal - if I craved the sweet/"unhealthy" kind, I would mix it with a few other "healthier" varieties, but no matter what, my bowl was always full.  It was a great way to start my day, but I was always starving by the time lunch rolled around.
When I wrote about my "healthy eating" commandments, I stressed the importance of not only reading your food label, but taking note of the serving size.  I'm sure you were as surprised as I was to see how one serving of cheerios didn't even fill two champagne glasses!  I can't even imagine how many servings I was filling my bowl with back in the day.  So, I decided to do a little experiment.

I went to the grocery store and bought Kellogg's Frosted Mini Wheats with a Touch of Fruit. Mini wheats are healthy, right?  And they have fruit in them, even better, right?
What's in your cereal bowl?
one serving of Cheerios via Vreeland Clinic's blog
What's in your cereal bowl?
Let's start with the ingredients.  The first ingredient is whole grain wheat - so far, so good.  But, the second ingredient is sugar!  You don't even find actual fruit until you're about halfway through the "2% or less" ingredients!  How does this all contribute to the nutritional breakdown?  We've got one gram of fat (with none of it being saturated or trans) and 5 grams of protein, which is great for cereal.  When you look at the carbohydrates, we've got 6 grams of fiber - also good!  But, as you move down to sugar, you can see that there are 10 grams of sugar per serving.  You'd hope maybe some of those sugars come from fruit, but remember, the actual fruit was listed in the "less than 2%" section of the ingredients.  If you compare this to a well-known "sugary cereal", Frosted Mini Wheats with a Touch of Fruit only has 3 grams sugar less than Lucky Charms!  Is 10 grams of sugar terrible for you?  Probably not, but are you really eating only one serving?

Now, let's look at serving size.  One serving of Kellogg's Frosted Mini Wheats with a Touch of Fruit is 24 biscuits.  Below you can see what 24 biscuits looks like in my cereal bowl.  Is that how you fill your cereal bowl?  It's certainly not how I fill mine!  I added another serving, and my bowl STILL wasn't full!  By the time I eye-balled my cereal bowl to "full", the way I would have years ago, I had 60 mini wheats in by bowl - that's 2.5 servings and 25 grams of sugar!  To give you an idea of how much sugar that is - one serving of Skittles has 32 grams of sugar, one serving of Twizzlers has 19 grams of sugar and one serving of chocolate ice cream has 17 grams of sugar.  Do Frosted Mini Wheats make Twizzlers look "healthy"?

What's in your cereal bowl?
What's in your cereal bowl?
Am I saying that eating cereal for breakfast is bad?  Absolutely not.  If you decide that you can't give up your cereal for breakfast, are there ones out there with less sugar?  Absolutely!  I just hope that I've stressed the importance of not only reading your nutrition labels, but paying attention to serving size as well.  If you find that you take the time to measure out one serving of cereal, but now you're hungry well before lunch time, maybe you can consider adding some protein to your breakfast?  Or a mid-morning snack?  I don't want to recommend certain cereals over others because everyone is going to have a different priority (high protein, high fiber, low sugar, maybe even gluten free), but two brands that I LOVE for cereal are Barbara's and Kashi, but check the labels!  Even some of them have a bit much of that pesky sugar!
Do you eat cereal for breakfast?  What's your favorite cereal?
7 Comments
Jackie
8/14/2013 01:59:51 am

PUFFINS!!!

Reply
Kerry
8/14/2013 03:57:55 am


We have been taught that sugar is bad for us. But if you lead an active lifestyle and in small amounts, sugar is pretty important. Not only is having some calories critical for maintaining blood glucose and exercise performance, a little bit of sugar (and sodium) significantly enhances the rate of water absorption through the small intestine. I work out about an hour after I eat my breakfast so a little sugar goes a long way and something too protein-heavy would be bad for my GI happiness. I could probably make a better choice insofar as how to get that sugar (fruit?) but there is also the element of just liking what you like. I think it just depends on what time you're eating and what you're doing and when in terms of activity to make a real case for what to eat. Also, tru dat ,Jackie. Puffins ARE delish!

Reply
FitYaf
8/14/2013 06:06:55 am

Kerry, it seems like you have a good grasp on when you may need those extra calories. If you're concerned about exercise performance, it's certainly something to consider. But like you said, there is more than one way to get these carbs into your system, and regardless of whether or not sugar is a good way to do that, there is always going to be some sort of scale from good to bad. And like I said - everyone is going to have a different priority when it comes to selecting a food that is "healthy". Thanks for the feedback!

Reply
Holly link
8/15/2013 11:42:03 am

Check http://www.naturalnews.com/033838_breakfast_cereals_GMOs.html unless Kashi has changed they use GMO products.

Reply
FitYaf
8/16/2013 04:31:25 am

Thanks for sharing Holly!

Reply
GiGi Eats Celebrities link
10/21/2013 11:15:27 pm

I have not eaten cereal in 11 years if you can believe it!! 11 years. I used to love Life, Lucky Charms, Honey Comb, the WORKS... Just throw ALL SWEET CEREAL in a huge trough and I would have sucked it down. Now I know better! ;)

Reply
FitYaf link
10/21/2013 11:21:33 pm

Wow - that is some amazing self control! I have yet to give it up completely, but I have definitely cut back a lot. Now it's just a treat! What do you eat for breakfast?

Reply



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    Jillian [FitYaf]

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