Consumer Reports: 2 of top US Cereals over 50% sugar

by phoenixesrose | October 3, 2008 at 02:04 am | 85 views | add comment | 0 recommendations

Growing up, my parents flat out refused to buy "sugary" cereal. Their motto was if we let you eat badly now, you'll never learn to eat properly later. Kudos to them for never having put up with me and my little brother's whines and temper tantrums in the hopes of getting our favorite sugary kid's cereal. We learned to eat right - and even now - in my 30's - I realize after looking at many of my counterparts how important that life lesson is.

The question now becomes - how many parents really know (or understand) what they are feeding their kids? Is this bowlful of sugar to help the cereal go down contributing to the obesity and improper eating of generations of children? Perhaps after reading the following, grown ups everywhere will rethink their grocery choices.

Are you one of those adults who keep a box of Frosted Flakes or Froot Loops hidden in the cupboard? Such sugary cereals are heavily marketed to children, to the tune of about $229 million advertising dollars per year. But an estimated 58 percent of "children’s" cereals are consumed by the over-18 crowd.

Whether you’re shopping for actual or overgrown kids, we found four cereals with kid-focused marketing that scored Very Good in our new nutrition rating system, based on product label information. Cheerios, Kix, Honey Nut Cheerios (all General Mills), and Life (Quaker Oats) earned points for relatively lower sugar and higher dietary fiber, the two categories we weighed as most important. Cheerios topped the list with only 1 gram of sugar and a healthful 3 grams of fiber per serving.

The bad news is that 23 of the top 27 cereals marketed to children rated only Good or Fair for nutrition. There is at least as much sugar in a serving of Kellogg's Honey Smacks and 10 other rated cereals as there is in a glazed doughnut from Dunkin’ Donuts. Two cereals, Kellogg's Honey Smacks and Post Golden Crisp, are more than 50 percent sugar (by weight) and nine are at least 40 percent sugar. And that's not the only issue. Although Kellogg's Rice Krispies has only 4 grams of sugar per serving, it got only a Fair rating, largely because it is higher in sodium and has zero dietary fiber. Kellogg's Frosted Mini-Wheats Bite Size earned a healthful cereal score of Good; it has 12 grams of sugar per serving but is also very low in sodium and has a hefty 6 grams of fiber.