UK: Is cereal really worse for you than ice cream?

. LONDON, England / The Times / Health / Expert Advice / May 5, 2009 I’ve heard that a lot of breakfast cereals contain more sugar per serving than a bowl of chocolate fudge brownie ice cream. Surely this can’t be true? If it is, which cereals are actually good for you? By Amanda Ursell According to a recent Which? study, out of 100 popular breakfast cereals tested, 31 had more than four teaspoons of sugar per portion — which is even more than in a bowl of the ice cream you mention — and 59 in total had what can be described as “high” amounts of sugar. Clearly, this makes for rather alarming reading. While you may expect brands such as Coco Pops and Sugar Puffs to contain added sugar, many of the cereals that fell into the “high sugar” category are generally those we perceive to be healthy brands such as All Bran, Bran Flakes and Special K; the latter having 11g of sugar per recommended serving. Manufacturers go to great lengths to accentuate the good points of their brands (such as flagging up their high-fibre content and added vitamins), which means that consumers do not give much thought to the sugar they may contain. This is deliberate and currently legal, although it is hoped that future European legislation will eventually close such loopholes so that only products that meet healthy criteria with all their nutrients will be able to make any type of health claim. Until then it is really a case of forewarned is forearmed. You need to be aware of a few important figures when you head for the supermarket to buy your weekly cereal. When it comes to sugar, any product with more than 10g of sugar per 100g you can consider to be “high”; anything with less than 2g of sugar per 100g “low”. Forget the amount of sugar given per serving on the pack because research suggests that we tend to eat a lot more than the size recommended and since serving sizes vary between brands, it is hard to compare like with like. Related Links Briefing: Breakfast survey: Cereal offenders Also flip the pack over and take a look at the ingredients list. Sugar comes in many forms including sucrose (the technical name for table sugar), glucose, glucose syrup, golden syrup, maple syrup, treacle, fruit juices, invert sugar, honey, fructose, dextrose and maltose. The higher up the list of ingredients any of these appear, the more sugar the product generally contains. As for salt, things have got better on this nutritional front over the past few years but some still manage to cram in a fair amount. Any food, including cereals, that contains more than 1.25g of salt (or 0.5g of sodium) per 100g is “high” in salt while anything less than 0.25g of salt (or 0.1g of sodium) is “low” in salt. It will not come as a massive shock to hear that according to Which?, only Nestlé’s Shredded Wheat scores well for both sugar and salt, since it is one of the only cereals around to have neither added. While this makes it a healthy option, it must be eaten plain to maintain the benefits, and it is worth remembering that it does not contain any of the added vitamins and minerals that can make other cereals quite useful, especially for example those fortified with iron, which many women in the UK eat too little of. If you find “nude” Shredded Wheat hard going, you can try adding granulated fruit sugar (fructose), which, although still a sugar, is digested much more slowly and causes less of a spike in blood sugar after eating than the other sugars listed. Porridge, for me, is the ultimate breakfast cereal. Adding a sliced banana gives a little sweetness along with potassium to help with healthy blood pressure. It is naturally low in salt and is digested slowly, which means that it keeps you feeling full for hours after eating. And if porridge is made and served with milk, like any other cereal start to the day, it provides useful amounts of protein. Plain muesli provides us with fibre and energy-boosting iron; avoid the crunchy ones that are often loaded with fat, salt and sugar. It still shows sugar in the nutritional information, but this comes from fruit sugar in the dried fruit. The worst offenders per 100g in the Which? study Cereal Kellogg’s Frosties (37g sugar, 1.15g salt) Kellogg’s Coco Pops Moons & Stars (37g sugar, 1g salt) Nestlé Cheerios Honey (35g sugar, 0.5g salt) Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut (32g sugar, 0.5g salt) Weetabix Wheatflakes with Raisin, Cranberry and Apple (30.9g sugar, 0.68g salt) Nestlé Honey Shreddies (30.3g sugar, 0.7g salt) Nestlé Honey, Oats and More (29.5g sugar, 0.7g salt) Bran Flakes (22g sugar, 1.3g salt) Special K Sustain (21g sugar, 1.15g salt) All Bran (17g sugar, 1.15g salt) And the best: Shredded Wheat (0.9g sugar, trace salt) Porridge Oats (1.1g sugar, trace salt) Weetabix Oatibix (3.2g sugar, 0.38g salt) Weetabix (4.4g sugar, 0.65g salt) Asda Cornflakes (8.9g sugar, 0.8g salt) Grapenuts (7g sugar, 1.3g salt) Natural plain muesli (12g sugar, 0.1g salt) Copyright 2009 Times Newspapers Ltd.