Breakfast cereals high in sugars: Report

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDDec 8 2011

In a new report by the Environmental Working Group, 84 popular brands of breakfast cereals were reviewed. The report suggested that many of these contain a high amount of sugar.

At nearly 56 percent sugar by weight, three cereals (Kellogg’s Honey Smacks, Post Golden Crisp, and General Mills Wheaties Fuel) weigh in with 20 grams of sugar in a one cup serving. This is actually five teaspoons of sugar — roughly the same as one Twinkie snack cake. And with today's oversized cereal bowls, a typical serving size is likely to be double that amount, or closer to two cups. A single one-cup bowl of an additional 44 cereals, including the popular Honey Nut Cheerios, Apple Jacks and Cap’n Crunch, are equivalent to eating three Chips Ahoy cookies — about three teaspoons of sugar.

The top ten offenders were Kellogg's Honey Smacks (55.6% sugar by weight), Post Golden Crisp (51.9%), Kellogg's Froot Loops Marshmallows (48.3%), Quaker Oats Cap'n Crunch's OOPS! All Berries, Quaker Oats Cap'n Crunch Original, Quaker Oats Oh!s, Kellogg's Smorz, Kellogg's Apple Jacks, Quaker Oats Cap'n Crunch's Crunch Berries and Kellogg's Froot Loops Original (41.4%).

“Most parents would never serve dessert for breakfast, but many children’s cereals have just as much sugar or more,” said Jane Houlihan, senior vice president of research for the group, a nonprofit that researches everything from the safety of sunscreens to pesticides in foods. “I wasn’t surprised that so many of these cereals contained sugar. I was surprised at the very high amounts.”

Ones that were a little lower on sugar were Kellogg’s Mini-Wheats (frosted or unfrosted), General Mills’ original Cheerios and Kix, Post Shredded Wheat (all varieties), and Quaker Oats Cinnamon Oatmeal Squares.

The group also claims that only one-fourth of 84 children's cereals tested met the voluntary proposed guidelines of the Interagency Working Group on Food Marketing, a group of federal nutrition, marketing and health experts brought together to make suggestions about the nutritional quality of food marketed to children and teens. The voluntary proposed guidelines, says the Environmental Working Group, recommend that ready-to-eat cereals have no more than 26% added sugar by weight. The EWG's report says that the Interagency Working Group's guidelines could be even a little tougher and go for a 15% cap on added sugar and making that mandatory instead of voluntary.

Additionally the Washington, D.C.-based EWG, a nonprofit research and advocacy group focused on public health and the environment also found that 10 cereals had more than 210 milligrams of sodium and at least 26 cereals were not predominantly whole grain.

But it was the climbing obesity rates that led Congress in 2009 to direct four agencies — the Federal Trade Commission, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the Agriculture Department — to look at how to improve the nutritional standards for foods marketed to children. The report might be presented to Congress by year’s end. Obesity rates have more than doubled for children ages 2 to 11 and more than tripled for teens ages 12 to 19 in the past three decades.