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Are Fortified Children’s Breakfast Cereals Just Candy?

The AHA! Team — Mon, 13 May 2024 08:02:54 +0000

Michael Greger M.D. FACLM via Nutrition Facts – The industry responds to the charge that breakfast cereals are too sugary. In 1941, the American Medical Association’s Council on Foods and Nutrition was presented with a new product, Vi-Chocolin, a vitamin-fortified chocolate bar, “offered ostensibly as a specialty product of high nutritive value and of some use in medicine, but in reality, intended for promotion to the public as a general-purpose confection, a vitaminized candy.” Surely, something like that couldn’t happen today, right? Unfortunately, that’s the sugary cereal industry’s business model. As I discuss in my video Are Fortified Kids’ Breakfast Cereals Healthy or Just Candy?, nutrients are added to breakfast cereals “as a marketing gimmick to “create an aura of healthfulness…If those nutrients were added to soft drinks or candy, would we encourage kids to consume them more often?” Would we feed our kids Coke and Snickers for breakfast? We might as well spray cotton candy with vitamins, too. As one medical journal editorial read, “Adding vitamins and minerals to sugary cereals…is worse than useless. The subtle message accompanying such products is that it is safe to eat more.” General Mills’ “Grow up strong with Big G kids’ cereals” ad campaign featured products like Lucky Charms, Trix, and Cocoa Puffs. That’s like the dairy industry promoting ice cream as a way to get your calcium. Kids who eat presweetened breakfast cereals may get more than 20 percent of their daily calories from added sugar, as you can see below and at 1:28 in my video. Most sugar in the American diet comes from beverages like soda, but breakfast cereals represent the third largest food source of added sugars in the diets of children and adolescents, wedged between candy and ice cream. On a per-serving basis, there is more added sugar in a cereal like Frosted Flakes than there is in frosted chocolate cake, a brownie, or even a frosted donut, as you can see below and at 1:48 in my video. Kellogg’s and General Mills argue that breakfast cereals only contribute a “relatively small amount” of sugar to the diets of children, less than soda, for example. “This is a perfect example of the social psychology phenomenon of ‘diffusion of responsibility.’ This behavior is analogous to each restaurant in the country arguing that it should not be required to ban smoking because it alone contributes only a tiny fraction to Americans’ exposure to secondhand smoke.” In fact, “each source of added sugar…should be reduced.” The industry argues that most of their cereals have less than 10 grams of sugar per serving, but when Consumer Reports measured how much cereal youngsters actually poured for themselves, they were found to serve themselves about 50 percent more than the suggested serving size for most of the tested cereals. The average portion of Frosted Flakes they poured for themselves contained 18 grams of sugar, which is 4½ teaspoons or 6 sugar packets’ worth. It’s been estimated that a “child eating one serving per day of a children’s cereal containing the average amount of sugar would consume nearly 1,000 teaspoons of sugar in a year.” Breakfast cereals rank as the third-largest food source of added sugars in the diets of kids General Mills offers the “Mary Poppins defense,” arguing that those spoonsful of sugar can “help the medicine go down” and explaining that “if sugar is removed from bran cereal, it would have the consistency of sawdust.” As you can see below and at 3:17 in my video, a General Mills representative wrote that the company is presented “with an untenable choice between making our healthful foods unpalatable or refraining from advertising them.” If it can’t add sugar to its cereals, they would be unpalatable? If one has to add sugar to a product to make it edible, that should tell us something. That’s a characteristic of so-called ultra-processed foods, where you have to pack them full of things like sugar, salt, and flavorings “to give flavor to foods that have had their [natural] intrinsic flavors processed out of them and to mask any unpleasant flavors in the final product.” The president of the Cereal Institute argued that without sugary cereals, kids might not eat breakfast at all. (This is similar to dairy industry arguments that removing chocolate milk from school cafeterias may lead to students “no longer purchasing school lunch.”) He also stressed we must consider the alternatives. As Kellogg’s director of nutrition once put it: “I would suggest that Fruit [sic] Loops as a snack are much better than potato chips or a sweet roll.” You know there’s a problem when the only way to make your product look good is to compare it to Pringles and Cinnabon. Want a healthier option? Check out my video Which Is a Better Breakfast: Cereal or Oatmeal?. For more on the effects of sugar on the body and if you like these more politically charged videos see the related posts below. Finally, for some additional videos on cereal, see Kids’ Breakfast Cereals as Nutritional Façade and Ochratoxin in Breakfast Cereals. Key Takeaways Vi-Chocolin, a vitamin-fortified chocolate bar, was purportedly offered as a product with high nutritive value but was really just vitaminized candy. The sugary cereal industry follows a similar business model. The sugary cereal industry has been criticized for adding nutrients to cereals “as a marketing gimmick,” creating an illusion of health benefits. Children who consume pre-sweetened breakfast cereals may derive more than 20 percent of their daily calories from added sugar. Breakfast cereals rank as the third-largest food source of added sugars in the diets of kids and adolescents, listed between candy and ice cream. On a per-serving basis, a cereal like Frosted Flakes has more added sugar than a frosted chocolate cake, a brownie, or a frosted donut. Kellogg’s and General Mills’ contention that breakfast cereals contribute only a “relatively small amount” of sugar to children’s diets is likened to the social psychology phenomenon of “diffusion of responsibility.” Consumer Reports’ findings reveal that children often pour themselves 50 percent more cereal than the suggested serving size. A child eating a single daily serving of kids’ cereal with the average amount of sugar would consume almost a thousand teaspoons of sugar in one year. The industry argues it has to add sugar to its cereals to make them palatable, which is a characteristic of ultra-processed foods. To read the original article click here.

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This Common Food May Be as Deadly as Sugar

AHA Publisher — Mon, 14 Dec 2020 08:00:01 +0000

Dr. Don Colbert – A worldwide food staple may be deadly. It may be on your dinner plate. Have you ever walked into your favorite restaurant, ordered beef and broccoli, with a side of a mound of sugar? Or, a sugar roll when indulging in sushi? How about chicken and sugar soup? If you’re eating white rice with your meal, you’re essentially doing just that. In fact, new studies and evidence show that white rice specifically, even compared to other high carb foods, elicits a strong rise in blood sugar response soon after eating it. It’s similar to eating sugar and maybe as deadly. Here’s what researchers are finding and how you can avoid eating a mound of sugar at dinner. White Rice Is a Mound of Sugar? White rice is eaten as a staple around the world. In fact, together with wheat and corn, rice provides approximately 42% of the calories consumed by the human population worldwide (1). Unfortunately, it is a highly processed food. It is used mostly because it is inexpensive, and has a long shelf-life. Compared to brown rice, which is also very high in carbohydrates, white rice is void of many nutrients. During processing, the bran (fiber) and germ (vitamin and minerals) are removed from the grain of rice. This is similar to the processing of many “white grains,” such as refined wheat vs. whole-grain wheat. Removing the germ and bran significantly increases the shelf-life of rice. Once removed, the white rice has far less protein, fiber, magnesium, B Vitamins, and phosphorus than its brown rice counterpart. White Rice Vs. Human Health However, the real problem with white rice is not just a lack of fiber or vitamins and minerals. It’s how your body processes it. When you eat white rice, your body actually begins digesting and breaking it down in your mouth. This occurs mechanically with all foods as you chew. But, with refined carbohydrates like white rice, the enzyme amylase begins breaking it down from the start as well. Why? Your body thinks you’re eating it because you need quick energy, right now. After it’s broken down in the mouth, it goes down the esophagus, to the stomach, where more enzymes, stomach acid, and mechanical stomach-churning break it down further. From there, it’s delivered to the small intestines for further breakdown, and complete absorption (there’s not much fiber residual left to slow it down or reduce absorption). This all occurs very, very fast. Fast, complete, carbohydrate digestion is not great for your health. In fact, once absorbed, the rice is transported to the liver, turned into blood sugar, and poured into the bloodstream in a glucose bolus. Now, the body must deal with it. There are two options: Store it as triglycerides and fat by sending out an unhealthy insulin bolus. Allow blood sugars to rise dangerously high. A food’s digestion, absorption, and blood sugar effect are quantified as its glycemic index. Glycemic Index and Current Studies The glycemic index of white rice tells some of the story: 73 +/- 4. For reference, sugar is 100, and white spaghetti noodles are 49 +/-2 (2). But, this is not the whole story. Recent studies show that it is far worse than many other carbohydrate foods in terms of blood sugar reactions, and may even play a part in the development of chronic blood sugar issues. For example, one small study of 12 adults with elevated blood sugars aimed to determine the post-meal blood sugar reactions of a high protein pasta, regular pasta, and white rice. The grams of carbohydrates were exactly the same for each meal. researchers found that peak blood glucose was significantly lower for the pasta and high-protein pasta meals, despite identical carbohydrate amounts (3). Another study with 15 overweight adults with normal blood sugars tested meals with rice vs. brown rice vs. brown rice and legumes. The results? Again, white rice had a negative effect on blood sugars. After 5 days of these meals, “white rice participants’” baseline insulin and glucose reactions were significantly elevated compared to brown rice or brown rice with legumes (4). Does White Rice Cause Chronic Abnormal Blood Sugars? Why then, do many populations who historically eat a lot of white rice have lower incidences of unhealthy blood sugars than those in the United States? Long-term abnormal and unhealthy blood sugars are part of a progression of illness, often associated with being overweight. What’s more, if other parts of the diet are healthy, they may not see as many health issues compared to populations who eat more processed and ultra-processed foods. Bottom Line: Are You Eating a Mound of Sugar at Dinner? For many people, it’s surprising to learn that white rice is similar to a mound of sugar in the body. Instead, choose low-carb, whole-foods like healthy fats, fibers, vegetables, and protein for optimal health. What’s more, achieving and maintaining healthy body weight is key to reducing your risk of unhealthy blood sugars. Choose your foods, and your lifestyle habits, wisely. To read the original article click here. For more articles from Dr. Colbert click here.

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