My sister Kim recently laid down an awesome rule in her house. After one of my nephews was having attention problems in morning classes, a teacher suggested dialing back his sugar intake.Kim took the bold and commendable approach of limiting their household to only buying cereals that have less than 11 grams of sugar per serving. Where'd she get the number? She admits it's just an arbitrary amount that seemed to be a dividing line between the healthier and overly sweetened cereals.
It seems like this approach is working wonders for her family. The boys are more settled, and attention in school has apparently increased. But perhaps more importantly, she's made them part of the solution by sending them on grocery-store scavenger hunts to pick cereals that are below the 11 gram mark.
Finding one of these cereals is harder than you'd think. As soon as Kim told me about the new rule, I went over and checked our cupboard. We mostly buy high-fiber cereals with clusters and flax and what the hell ever. Because, you know, we're old. But sure enough, almost all the stuff in our cabinet was at or above 11 grams.
Only Rice Chex (a personal favorite of mine) passed the test. It has 2 grams of sugar.
Kids' brands actually fare relatively well in this litmus test, largely because they've had their sugar counts weaned back in response to criticisms over the years. (Cinnamon Toast Crunch, which tastes a world of different than it did when I was a kid, only has 10 grams.)
So how's your cereal selection hold up to this test? Let me know in the comments if you found any surprises.
Click here to check out a chart of the sugar content in most cereals. If you're wondering who the real main offender is, you might be surprised. Raisin Brans of all stripes seem to tip the scales at 20 grams per serving. That's FIVE TEASPOONS OF SUGAR. Ye gods.
11 comments:
Currently in the pantry:
Honey Nut Clusters (17g)
Honey Nut Chex (9g)
Frosted Shredded Wheat (12g)
And I thought we were doing pretty well...
I'm sort of shocked that my Smart Start (meant to be healthy -- says right in the name!) has 15 grams.
No cereal (0g)
I stopped eating cereal since my work has free oatmeal. Although the oatmeal I eat has "Maple and Brown Sugar" in its name, so I assume it's got more than 11g of sugar.
I've been eating Raisin Bran lately, and I can tell you exactly where the sugar comes from: the raisins are basically rolled in it. Since I'm one of the weirdos who could live with maybe half a scoop instead of two, I end up picking out as many as I can, and that's how I noticed it.
two personal favorites are quaker oat squares (9g/serving) and special k chocolatey delight (9 grams but it's about half the serving size of the other).
The kashi flavors i like (go lean crunch, go lean crunch honey lamond flax and heart to heart blueberry) have about 13 g per serving
oh, and btw dale, 13 g of sugar in your one packet of oatmeal
A few years back we set the sugar mark to 10g per serving for our family and our kids would search every box at the store looking for cereals they were allowed.
Last year we decided to cut out all processed breakfast cereals and now eat cooked cereal or homemade baked breads in the morning. It is a whole lot cheaper!
My Fiber One breakfast bars barely make the cut at 10 grams. I'm actually surprised at how low that is considering how sweet they taste. One of the listed ingredients is "Confectioners Shellac," which is surely what makes them so tasty.
vo0's already listed the Kashi Go Lean, which is what I eat on the rare days that cereal is breakfast.
Have you done any research into glycemic index?
I hadn't really read about glycemic index, but I just poked around a bit on the main site. I have to admit it was a bit tough to understand the message behind the numbers...seemed that "thinner" processed cereals like corn flakes had a high GI because they can be so easily broken down and quickly affect your blood sugar. But I'm really just guessing, based on which cereals had high GIs and which didn't. I'm sure it depends on the nature of the base produce that's used to make the cereal too. (You can search for "cereal" in the food database on glycemicindex.com)
Thanks for all the comments, everybody. Maybe I'll do a post on sodium and really get people fired up. :)
David,
Just for the fun of it, check out the sugar content of PopTarts. Needless to say we don't purchase those producta anymore. It is just cheaper to feed them spoonfuls from the sugar jar and has about the same results.
I eat Fiber One, which has 0 grams, but, unfortunately, has aspartame, which I'm trying to cut out of my diet.
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