Have you ever read the ingredients on a cereal box label?
You do know that ingredients are listed in order by most to least amount, right?
Pull out a box of cereal that you let you kids eat. What’s the first ingredient? I bet it’s sugar.
A new study by the Environmental Working Group details the amount of sugar in many kid cereals and it’s astounding, even to someone like me who now routinely reads labels before buying anything.
They titled it “Twinkees for breakfast” for a reason.
Here’s what they said: A serving of Twinkees has 18 grams of sugar and a serving of Kellogg’s Honey Smacks has two grams more, at 20 grams of sugar. By weight, Honey Smacks are more than 55% sugar.
And what about Honey Nut Cheerios, which I used to buy until my husband pointed out the sugar content: It’s got 12 grams of sugar, one more than three Chips Ahoy! cookies. (We switched to the multi-grain version, which I’m going to double-check tonight.)
Think about what all that sugar does to kids at the start of the school day. They get a sugar buzz, which then crashes in what, an hour maybe? Right smack (pardon the pun) in the middle of math.
Fortunately, EWG’s study contains a downloadable document (.pdf) that lists some of the healthiest cereals in addition to bashing the worst. You can find it here.
– Linda J.
