would have been Golden Grahams cereal hands down!
Why? Well I was a kid for one, and even if you'd told me how bad that stuff is I wouldn't have cared. I mean, as a kid, you're invincible. And the idea of "nutritional value", just didn't exist to me as a kid.
Fortunately I've grown up... at least in that regard! LOL
My beef with the cereal companies is how they market their products. I was at the supermarket last week and I had the "lovely" experience of watching a kid pressure his mom into buying him four utterly garbage-filled cereals.
I am going from memory here, but they were:
1. Lucky Charms
2. Count Chocula
3. Cinnamon Toast Crunch
4. Fruity Cheerios
As a (relatively) educated adult, that list sounds like a dessert list to me. But this mother gave in to her sons pressure and bought them all. I actually had to pretend to be deciding between a couple other products on the opposite wall so I could stay and listen in to the whole fiasco.
The mother said she wasn't sure if the cereals were nutritious enough, and it was actually the boy who pointed out a number of marketing and labeling facts that eventually convinced the mother to buy them.
From my recollection, there was mention of:
1. "Low in fat"
2. "Whole grain"
3. "Fruit has vitamins&minerals"
4. "Heart Healthy"
The cereals chosen were all low in fat, but really, who cares? More than anyone else, kids need fats. Of course they need healthy fats, not the kind you WOULD see in cereals if fats were not so taboo these days.
Whole grain. This is about the biggest joke ever. Just because you start with a WHOLE grain, doesn't mean after pulverizing the hell out of it that there's much left of any nutritional value. That's actually the whole point of cereals. Take Cheerios for example. Made from Whole Oats. Wow.. that's great. But if you take 1/4 cup of actual oats, after all the processing that General Mills does to them you get a whole BOX of Cheerios. So the cereal companies are basically diluting the nutritional content of the WHOLE grains in their products.
Of course they have to fill it with something, so what do you suppose that would be?
JOKE INGREDIENT LISTCheck out the ingredients list of this Berry Burst Cheerios garbage cereal. Can you believe they have the gall to put a little heart right square in the middle of the page that says "May reduce the risk of heart disease".
Read the ingredients list and you tell me if you think this cereal "might" reduce your risk of heart disease, or flat-out CAUSE you to get heart disease!
Here's another one...
As if being filled with corn starch, corn syrup, and corn meal wasn't bad enough, they even use corn as their "WHOLE GRAIN" base from which to make the cereal. It's absolutely abominable!
IMPORTANT VIDEO
Check out these VIDEOS I found on the GENERAL MILLS GARBAGE CEREAL website. These videos are short--basically because there isn't much to say that takes longer than 3 seconds about their cereals when it comes to health--and are designed to make you feel confident that you're serving your family healthy foods. They have a registered dietitian speaking in effort to boost your confidence in the health of these products.
First of all, as a registered dietitian, talk about prostituting oneself out to the highest bidder. Technically, everything she says is correct. But it does nothing to change the fact that those cereals are nothing more than vitamin fortified desserts that "start" with a WHOLE grain base.
Have I not made it clear enough that GRAINS aren't the end all and be all of nutrition? Yes they have lots of fiber when you eat them in the form they grow in or with minimal processing, and they do have some vitamins and minerals, but grains' biggest component is starch. Like we need any more of that!
Check this out... good old Cheerios, which used to be the cereal my mom would buy us all the time because she said it was the healthiest, has now sold out to the sugar demons. How many different sugary Cheerios cereals are there now?
Cheerios VarietyThere are ten varieties of Cheerios, and seven of them have an image of fruit on the front of the box. Of the seven that have an image of fruit:
- Regular Cheerios and MultiGrain Cheerios actually have no fruit in it at all
- Berry Burst Cheerios has freeze-dried fruit (near zero nutrition)
- Banana Nut Cheerios has banana puree in it (can you imagine what that looks like when it is poured out of the massive drum at the factory... it's gonna look and taste like a grey sludge... no yellow colour) another near-zero nutrition
- Apple Cinnamon Cheerios has apple puree concentrate in it, which did come from apples, but no longer bears any semblance at all to the original fruit (another near zero nutrition)
- Fruity Cheerios has pear puree concentrate in it, which is basically no different than apple puree concentrate, it's just a sugary liquid with trace vitamin and mineral content (another near zero nutrition)
- Yogurt Cheerios has dried strawberries in it, which I would like to think may be somehow better than the others, but I just know it's not (another near zero nutrition)
So as you can see the marketing practices of these companies try to present their cereals as healthful with fiber, fruit, vitamins and minerals, when in the end they deliver virtually nothing.
Don't get me wrong, I could enjoy a bowl of cereal, I do have a sweet tooth, but if I were to do so it would be a 10% meal, and truthfully, so long as Hagen Daaz exists, they'll be my 10% meals!
At least Hagen Daaz doesn't try to be "Healthy"!
As always I welcome and encourage your comments, both good or bad.
2 comments:
Hey Shane,
So are we basically saying that ALL cereals are bad? A personal example, we buy PC Blue Menu Bran Flakes, and the PC Blue Menu On Track Protein Cereal (links to each below). I've always thought "how bad can these be for you?". But looking at the ingredients, I see a ton of "what the hell is that?".
What are your thoughts?
http://www.presidentschoice.ca/FoodAndRecipes/BlueMenu/ProductDetails.aspx/id/17034/name/PCBlueMenuBranFlakesCereal/catid/224
http://www.presidentschoice.ca/FoodAndRecipes/BlueMenu/ProductDetails.aspx/id/19871/name/PCBlueMenuOnTrackCerealPlusProtein/catid/224
Thanks for your comment!
If you're going to buy commercially prepared cereals, PC Blue Menu is probably your best choice. But let's look at the two you've mentioned in particular.
PC Blue Menu Bran Flakes
Wheat is an iffy grain. Compared to all the other ones, there are more sensitivities to it than any of the others. Sensitivities manifest themselves in many ways. I had one client who lost 10 lbs just by cutting wheat out of her diet.
This cereal contains whole wheat, but since it is heavily processed, they add wheat bran because the processing reduces the amount of bran in the first place.
The next ingredient is glucose/fructose... or sugar. Do you need it? Not likely.
They add malted barley extract which is a bulking agent. So it helps the food move through the intestine.
Finally they add a bunch of vitamins and minerals because the processing removes them in the first place, and it looks good from a marketing stand point.
Let's look at the second product you mentioned:
PC Blue Menu On Track Cereal Plus Protein
Again, in this product the grains (oats, wheat, corn) are all heavily processed, which removes much of their native nutrition.
The third ingredient is glucose/fructose... sugar again. Do you need it? Grains have lots of natural sugars. Why add more?
Isolated soy protein is where they add their extra protein. But why not eat some Edamame (soy) beans? Go to your grocery store, and buy some frozen Edamame beans, put them in the microwave for two minutes with a bit of water, then you get all the protein, fiber, fats, and good carboydrates that are present naturally in the product.
They add rice flour, which has none of the original fiber present that rice has when it is eaten whole.
They've added wheat gluten, a known allergen in so many people. Makes no sense to me.
They've added honey, which is just another fancy term for sugar. Yes, honey is naturally occurring, but do you need the sugar calories?
They've also added defatted wheat germ. Now why do you suppose they've defatted it?
Because if they left the fat in, it would "appear" to have too much fat per serving in the nutrition label.
This cereal also has it's vitamin and mineral fortification spray, which you should know is a liquid spray that is stored in massive vats in the facilities where the cereals are manufactured.
Now if we take a step back and don't get so detailed for a moment, are these cereals that bad compared to say Cheerios?
No, they're definitely a step up. But only a small step up.
The fact that you are choosing PC Blue Menu cereals obviously means you are interested in making smarter nutrition decisions regarding your food consumption, so why not step it right up and have a breakfast like this:
1/4 cup organic oats
1/4 cup organic 2% milk
3 organic strawberries sliced
1/2 small banana sliced
10 walnut or pecan pieces
or
1-3 tsp Udo's oil
1-2 eggs
or
1/2 cup Edamame beans
Add a pinch of Stevia (a natural sweetener) if needed.
You can also add a little bit of ground flaxseed or chiaseed to your breafast bowl for some added fibre. I buy organic flaxseeds and grind them myself and keep them in the freezer in a ziploc bag. So it's just a matter of adding a spoonful to my shake in the morning.
You can also buy Quinoa, Barley, Millet, Bulgur, and Spelt at your local health food store and they can all be substituted for the oats in the breakfast I suggested.
They're all nutritious, have lots and varied fibers, and will provide a nutritious start to your day.
For maximum nutrition, eat foods in the form nature provides them in.
I know it's a big step to move away from the commercially prepared breakfast cereals, but I did it about 15 years ago and I've never looked back!
Thanks again for the comment!
:)
Shane
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