Cereal is the best breakfast option for many. It’s a quick and convenient way to start the day and doesn’t require cooking or a lot of clean-up. As a testament to how much we love cereal, Americans spend $10 billion buying nearly 3 billion boxes of cereal each year. But not all grains are created equal.
While many cereals claim to be a healthy part of a balanced breakfast, most are just empty calories filled with sugar. Slick marketing often tricks people into thinking these grains are good for you. Even worse, some popular cereal brands engage in dangerous food quality practices that can put your health at risk.
Let’s take a closer look at the cereal brands you might want to avoid and why.
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One of the most common pieces of advice you’ll hear from doctors and nutritionists is to eat less processed food—and for good reason. Highly processed foods are linked to obesity, heart disease and even depression. Almost all popular breakfast foods undergo some processing to improve taste, shape, texture and digestibility. However, this removes important vitamins, minerals and fiber found naturally in grains.
To replace the lost nutrients, grains are often fortified with vitamins and minerals – sometimes in synthetic forms. Nutrients that are added back include:
Some experts believe that we should avoid grains fortified with synthetic nutrients such as folic acid (vitamin B9) because of their impact on our health.
According to Adylia-Rhenee Gutierrez, a certified nutritionist and vegan chef, “Synthetic vitamins are not made from whole food sources from your diet. Synthetic vitamins are artificial through industrial processing. It should be noted that the FDA does not regulate dietary supplements for their supplements. safety or effectiveness before they are marketed.”
Gutierrez is also the inspired creator of Yhorlife, an online wellness and fashion platform. She believes that it is always best to get nutrients from whole food sources. And she may be right. Folic acid supplements have been linked to prostate cancer and other health problems. However, others push back, saying that processed grains aren’t necessarily bad for you.
“When it comes to [grains], research shows that compared to people who don’t eat grains, grain eaters have a high nutrient intake and are more likely to meet nutrient recommendations,” says Toby Amidor, MS, RD, CDN, FAND , an award-winning nutritionist and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Diabetes Create Your Plate Meal Prep Cookbook, who is also a member of the Eat This, Not That! Medical expert Name.
She also adds that many of the foods we eat are processed to some extent. Any food that has been cooked, sliced, canned, frozen, packaged, preserved, prepared in various ways or nutritionally modified is considered processed. Manufacturers also add a lot of sugar during processing to make their cereal products very palatable. Many times sugar is the second or third ingredient on the list. Added sugar can be dangerous and has been linked to obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
But Amidor says there are plenty of alternative brands that are lower in sugar, and that shouldn’t outweigh the many health benefits of cereal. Gutierrez takes a more cautious approach.
“Any high consumption of sugar is a concern because of the effects of sugar on the body. High sugar consumption has been proven to contribute to obesity and other serious health problems,” she says.
Could your breakfast cereal be poisoning you? Well, it depends on who you ask and what research you look at.
A leading FDA-registered food safety testing laboratory found high levels of glyphosate in Cheerios. Glyphosate is a herbicide found in Roundup. Growing research suggests it can disrupt the immune system and damage cells.
Amidor says trace amounts of glyphosate can be found in most foods because of its widespread use. But, she says, “The amount of glyphosate found in any grain is so small that you would have to eat over 100 pounds of grain a day for the rest of your life to even reach the safety levels set by the government . When it comes to Cheerios, the trace amounts of glyphosate some have claimed to find are much lower than the amount the EPA considers safe for human health in oats.”
She also says that both the United States Food and Drug Association (USDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have concluded that there is no link between trace amounts of glyphosate and cancer. However, other organizations disagree. For example, in 2017 the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) labeled glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic” to humans.
The European Union has also set an acceptable daily limit for glyphosate that is six times lower than one set by the EPA. The fact that authorities cannot agree on a healthy limit shows that research is still not clear about the toxic effects of glyphosate. Gutierrez says studies have found that chronically ill people have higher glyphosate residues in their urine than healthy people. Clearly, the jury is still out on the harmful effects of the herbicide. There is also the issue of heavy metals such as mercury, lead, cadmium and arsenic.
Several congressional reports have found high levels of arsenic in popular baby cereals, including Beech-Nut and Gerber. This has led to mass recalls of the products. The reports also found that these companies rarely test their products for heavy metals. Even when they test, they still allow products that exceed the limit to enter the market. These are worrying results because heavy metals can be quite dangerous, especially for children. In addition, they can lead to lower IQs, behavioral problems and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Amidor maintains that baby cereal manufacturers are cleaning up their act and that the majority now comply with FDA standards. Recently, over 7,000 people reported symptoms of food poisoning, including diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and stomach cramps, after eating Lucky Charms and Cheerios — both General Mills brands. The company conducted a health study and claimed they found no evidence that the grains were related to the illnesses.
Gutierrez believes it may be a toxic substance found in these grains called trisodium phosphate that has the potential to cause similar symptoms. But it is not the first time that breakfast cereals have been linked to food poisoning. In 2018, Kellogg’s Honey Smacks caused a salmonella outbreak in 36 states that led to 34 hospitalizations. Kellogg also recalled 28 million boxes of Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, Corn Pops and Honey Smacks in 2010 due to an off-odor and taste from the packaging insert.
More reasons to stay away from these brands.
BHA and BHT are preservatives found in many grains and other foods that help the product last longer. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, says that BHA may be carcinogenic.
However, Amidor says no research has found that BHT causes cancer. Since BHT and BHA are similar compounds, it stands to reason that BHA is also safe. But Gutierrez says these preservatives can cause allergic reactions in babies and reaffirms that they are carcinogenic.
It’s probably best to avoid BHA and BHT if you can—at least until more research comes out.
Walk down the cereal aisle and you’ll notice that most boxes have colorful, vibrant packaging designed to catch the wandering eye of young children. In addition, cereal brands often feature kid-friendly, lovable cartoon mascots like Tony the Tiger and Cap’n Crunch. Of course these are conscious. Cereal companies have long marketed their products – often their most unhealthy – to children. They know that children are very impressionable and are receptive to clever marketing and advertising.
Total media spend on cereals advertised to children increased 34% from 2008 to 2011. General Mills and Kellog are the worst offenders with a combined marketing budget of $250 million.
“The most worrying thing about this marketing angle is that this is the beginning of addiction to convenience. We are setting our children up to be predisposed to the health risks of highly processed foods. What is also worrying is that we are conditioning them to the best and most addictive flavors — sugar and salt,” says Gutierrez.
One report found that cereals marketed to children had 50% more sugar and sodium and less than half the fiber compared to adults. Some companies offer healthier alternatives with lower sugar content. However, these are marketed towards parents, not children. Even more worryingly, nine out of every 10 cereal adverts seen by children are for products containing more than 25% sugar.
But Amidor is not worried. She believes that the standards for responsible marketing have changed in recent years. As an example, she says General Mills is a participant in the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI), which sets limits on sugar, calories and TK. Companies participating in the CFBAI are prohibited from marketing products to children under the age of 13 that do not meet these standards.
However, a recent report by the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health at the University of Connecticut found that little has changed. Instead, cereal companies are simply using loopholes in the CFBAI guidelines that still allow them to market their unhealthy products to children.
It’s clear that big cereal companies don’t always have the consumer’s best interest in mind when it comes to health. So don’t be fooled by pretty packaging or advertising that touts more fiber. Often these are just tricks to cover up the sugar-laden product underneath.
So what can you do to protect yourself?
If you are concerned about glyphosate, choose organic grains. Gutierrez says organic is a better choice since it’s free of artificial additives and colors. And also make sure to check the nutritional profile before you buy your cereals. You can also check Consumer Reports to see which cereals are the healthiest – and unhealthiest.
As Amidor says, “There are many options, so you can choose the one that meets your nutritional, taste and cost preferences.”
That’s good advice. The important part is being invested in your health so you can make informed decisions about what you and your children eat.
