Is cereal still a good, healthy breakfast option?
Who doesn’t love a bowl of cereal? It’s great for breakfast or as an evening snack. But is it still the best way to start the day, or should we be pivoting to other, more trendy foods?
Over the course of her eating disorder recovery, 26-year-old lifestyle blogger Joey Tamburello has been falling back in love with the classic cereal brands that she remembers from her childhood.
“I adore Golden Nuggets, Honey Puffs, Wheetos – Aldi ones are fab – and Shreddies! I think my top ones, though, are the nuggets and puffs, because they really made me happy when I was younger,” she says. “Being able to enjoy them again as an adult after such a long time has also added a lot of joy to my mornings.”
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Many of us learned to love cereal in our childhoods when we first watched anthropomorphic bears and monkeys dance across our television screens. The catchy “Coco Pops and milk make a bowl full of fun” jingle randomly pops into my head at least a couple of times a year and “They’re Gr-r-reat!” is known by multiple generations as the catchphrase of Tony the Tiger, the advertising mascot for Kellogg’s Frosties.
As adults, however, we tend to swerve towards more ‘sophisticated’ breakfasts. Take 34-year-old freelance writer and communications consultant Charlotte Cassedanne, for example. She usually enjoys toast with jam for breakfast if she’s at home and avocado and eggs for weekend brunch. But if she’s going into the office and needs something quick, her go-to is a bowl of chocolate Country Crisp cereal. “It’s a fast option – it doesn’t need any cooking,” she says. “And I guess, it could also be a habit from school days.”
Anna Mapson is a nutritional therapist and the owner of Goodness Me Nutrition. She agrees that childhood nostalgia has a lot to do with the sustained popularity of cereal. “It’s easy to eat, it’s easy to prepare and there’s something about childhood wrapped up in it,” she says. “It’s often comforting. Some people like cereal in the evenings when they’re feeling a bit down. It’s one of those things that people will comfort eat, harking back to that time when you were being looked after.”
Back in 2013, a YouGov study revealed that Monday to Friday, cereal and toast were the most popular breakfast foods among UK consumers, with 82% and 83% respectively saying that they eat these foods for breakfast. 55% of respondents said that convenience was the most important factor for choosing to eat cereal for breakfast, while 37% of respondents said that health reasons were the most important factor.
Just how important is having breakfast these days?
At some point in your life, someone has probably told you that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”. The phrase has become so ingrained into our culture that it seems almost unquestionably true. What often isn’t mentioned is that this slogan was popularised during a 1944 marketing campaign launched by General Foods, the manufacturer of the cereal Grape Nuts.
There’s no question that eating breakfast every morning still provides some significant health benefits. “People who skip breakfast tend to be lower in a lot of key nutrients, like B vitamins, calcium and iron. And that’s just because they’re missing a whole meal. So if you’re only having two meals a day, like lunch and dinner, and then some snacks, you’re missing out on one-third of your potential opportunity to eat those,” explains Mapson.
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“Sometimes people will say, ‘I’m not hungry in the mornings, so I don’t want to eat breakfast.’ We can train our bodies to be hungry at certain times of the day.”
Ghrelin is our “hunger hormone”. It is produced by enteroendocrine cells of the gastrointestinal tract, and it increases our drive to eat. The levels of ghrelin in our blood are at their highest before mealtimes. After we eat, our ghrelin levels reduce.
“Ghrelin is stronger at the time we normally eat. So if you are always having breakfast at 8am, you will tend to feel hungry at around quarter to eight as your body knows that food is coming. We digest our food best when we eat at regular times of the day,” says Mapson. “It’s best to not chop and change between sometimes having breakfast and sometimes not having breakfast. Because of your hunger hormones, you’ll find it harder to manage it.”
Just how healthy are breakfast cereals?
Before the invention of cereal, the Western breakfast was very similar to other meals. The rise of the cereal industry led to the model of processed, ready-to-eat breakfast products that remains today.
It’s fair to say that breakfast cereal manufacturers have a reputation for making some pretty wild health and nutrition claims – many of which have been vague and unsupported.
For instance, archived historical documents preserved by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) show that Flaked Rice manufacturers claimed: ”one pound of Flaked Rice contains 21% more life-giving nourishment than a pound of beef and a pound of potatoes combined,” and “Flaked Rice stands at the head of all foods as a tissue builder”.
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Meanwhile, the manufacturers of Grape-Nuts claimed that “the system will absorb a greater amount of nourishment from 1 pound of Grape-Nuts than from 10 pounds of meat, wheat oats or bread”. Despite manufacturers insisting that these claims were true, there’s never been any actual scientific evidence to back them up.
Today, you’ll still find a number of health claims on cereal packets. A 2019 audit of the nutrition and health claims on breakfast cereals in supermarkets in the Illawarra region of Australia revealed that almost all (95.7%) products audited carried at least one nutrition or health claim, but that the vast majority of these claims (91.6%) were compliant with regulations. Clearly, breakfast cereals can offer a load of vitamins, nutrients and fibre – as well as being generally convenient and tasty.
What to look for when choosing a breakfast cereal
When choosing a cereal, Mapson suggests plumping for high-fibre, low-sugar options. “A good benchmark is 3g of fibre per 100g. If you can, try to find something that’s got high levels of protein as well,” Mapson explains. “Those are two things to look out for, because fibre and protein keep us full for longer.”
If you do enjoy eating cereal for breakfast, then you can boost its nutritional profile by adding a handful of fruit such as berries or chopped apple, ground-up nuts, seeds, or a spoonful of plain yoghurt to boost fibre and protein content. Another option is to have a piece of chicken or a hard-boiled egg on the side.
“I eat porridge with an egg in it, for extra protein,” Mapson tells me. “I actually get my clients to do this quite a lot.”
I’m immediately picturing frying an egg and dumping it on top of my porridge. Mapson must notice that I look slightly unnerved because she adds: “Just basically cook the porridge and then break an egg into it. And then just quickly stir it and stir it so it doesn’t go all like scrambled eggs and it just adds like another four to six grams of protein in your breakfast. It’s got some healthy fats as well, so it’s just a lot more filling.”
If that sounds grim, or you’re plant-based, try adding a dollop of nut butter to your cereal or porridge instead. It’s protein-rich, full of unsaturated fats and generally tastes delicious. Don’t forget that most cereals have been fortified with calcium, B vitamins and vitamin D as well; add those little extras and that crackling bowl of cereal really be a great, nutritious way to start the day.
For more nutrition tips and ideas, visit the Strong Women Training Club.
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