Breakfast Cereals
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Hippie granola head here. A local bakery makes a great one. With almond milk and berries. But I don’t have it every day.
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Slight rant with the no added sugar labels on “health” food. It should say no added refined sugar. Date powder is sugar - fructose and glucose. This product doesn’t have a ton of sugar like kids breakfast cereals, but it DOES have added sugar. Fruit concentrates are full of sugar. Cane sugar is sucrose - which a disaccharide made of fructose and glucose. Same as than the fructose and glucose they are adding using the date powder. Yes, there are other things in dates, like fiber, which is good. But dates are mostly sugar, especially the ripe ones. It’s like the YouTuber recipes that say No sugar! But they use honey, or maple syrup. It’s still freaking sugar.
Rant over, lol. (To be clear, I’m all about checking labels and not buying things with too much sugar, and this one doesn’t have that much. ) -
Were you eating "children's cereals?
Not a surprise that Lucky Charms and the like are nutritional nightmares.
Original Cheerios probably better.
@Piano-Dad Oh... I've always associated cold breakfast cereals as children's cereals. Maybe because I rarely saw any adults eat them when I was growing up. Occasionally my mother would enjoy a bowl of Grape Nuts.
I had a box of store brand Honet Nut "Cheerios" by mistake; I thought I was buying the regular kind. So yeah, full of sugar, one gram of protein per serving. But also, bite sized Shredded Wheat (not frosted) but I don't have the box because I decanted it into a plastic bin.
I usually make my own granola, but I ran out.
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Slight rant with the no added sugar labels on “health” food. It should say no added refined sugar. Date powder is sugar - fructose and glucose. This product doesn’t have a ton of sugar like kids breakfast cereals, but it DOES have added sugar. Fruit concentrates are full of sugar. Cane sugar is sucrose - which a disaccharide made of fructose and glucose. Same as than the fructose and glucose they are adding using the date powder. Yes, there are other things in dates, like fiber, which is good. But dates are mostly sugar, especially the ripe ones. It’s like the YouTuber recipes that say No sugar! But they use honey, or maple syrup. It’s still freaking sugar.
Rant over, lol. (To be clear, I’m all about checking labels and not buying things with too much sugar, and this one doesn’t have that much. )I’m with you on the added sugar thing. It’s in everything!
But the rule of thumb I go by is “Never eat fruit sugar unless it’s attached to a fruit”.
The date powder passes that test - Google says it’s just ground dates, fiber and all. Certainly dried as well - chopped dates would drastically reduce the shelf life and probably make the cereal mushy.What I’ve started wondering about are the “natural flavors” - note that the blueberry vanilla cereal has no vanilla. Everything I’m reading says they’re not natural at all. Are they problematic? Probably not but who knows? Good luck avoiding them - they’re also in everything.
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My understanding of “natural flavours” is that they are things found in nature rather than straight up chemicals. But sometimes the “natural flavour” is actually ground up beetles that happen to taste exactly like cherries (not a real example, but not far off).
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If you’re interested in such things you might like the book I just finished.
“Ultra Processed People”. Chris Van Tulleken.
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I started making my own muesli because the premade stuff is so ridiculously expensive. It's super easy and I control the ingredients.
I buy the components bulk at natural grocers:
1 part rye flakes
1 part oat flakes
1 bag sliced almonds
equivalent amount of walnut pieces
1 bag apple juice sweetened dried cranberries
1 bag date piecesMix well and store in a sealed storage container
Breakfast is 1 cup of the homemade muesli mix plus:
Coconut milk, plain unsweetened yogurt, collagen powder, prebiotics powder, and fresh or defrosted frozen berries or half an apple chopped up.
It's very filling and sometimes I don't even need anything more to eat until late in the day.
fear is the thief of dreams
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I started having cereal for breakfast a few months ago and have noticed a difference in how I feel. I'm going off it now to see what, if any, changes I notice.
Analysis of newly launched children’s RTE cereals from 2010 to 2023 revealed concerning nutritional shifts: notable increases in fat, sodium, and sugar alongside decreases in protein and fiber. Children’s cereals contain high levels of added sugar, with a single serving exceeding 45% of the American Heart Association’s daily recommended limit for children.4 These trends suggest a potential prioritization of taste over nutritional quality in product development, contributing to childhood obesity and long-term cardiovascular health risks.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2834355
@Bernard said in Breakfast Cereals:
I started having cereal for breakfast a few months ago and have noticed a difference in how I feel.
I assume IU mean you feel better? What did you eat for breakfast before then?
I eat a combo of all barn and granola mixed into Greek yogurt for breakfast. Sometimes the kind of granola I want isn’t available, and then it takes me about 12 hours of reading through the nutrition labels on the available options to find one that’s not loaded with 100 times more sugar than my usual option. So frustrating.
But even my usual option has added sugar, and so does all bran.
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I started making my own muesli because the premade stuff is so ridiculously expensive. It's super easy and I control the ingredients.
I buy the components bulk at natural grocers:
1 part rye flakes
1 part oat flakes
1 bag sliced almonds
equivalent amount of walnut pieces
1 bag apple juice sweetened dried cranberries
1 bag date piecesMix well and store in a sealed storage container
Breakfast is 1 cup of the homemade muesli mix plus:
Coconut milk, plain unsweetened yogurt, collagen powder, prebiotics powder, and fresh or defrosted frozen berries or half an apple chopped up.
It's very filling and sometimes I don't even need anything more to eat until late in the day.
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I have 2/4 cup of Red Mill oatmeal +3/4 cup water. Sometimes I microwave it for 1 minute, stir in 1 egg, then microwave it for 63 seconds. I do add a very small amount of maple syrup sometimes. Other times I microwave it for 2 minutes, then stir in a teaspoon of plain, no sugar peanut butter. The Good and Gather brand from Target is the best I have found.
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@pique said in Breakfast Cereals:
I started making my own muesli because the premade stuff is so ridiculously expensive.
This is another frustrating thing. It seems like the less sugar something has in it , the more expensive it is.
@ShiroKuro said in Breakfast Cereals:
@pique said in Breakfast Cereals:
I started making my own muesli because the premade stuff is so ridiculously expensive.
This is another frustrating thing. It seems like the less sugar something has in it , the more expensive it is.
Quality costs. Sugar and refined flour are cheap.
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@Bernard said in Breakfast Cereals:
I started having cereal for breakfast a few months ago and have noticed a difference in how I feel.
I assume IU mean you feel better? What did you eat for breakfast before then?
I eat a combo of all barn and granola mixed into Greek yogurt for breakfast. Sometimes the kind of granola I want isn’t available, and then it takes me about 12 hours of reading through the nutrition labels on the available options to find one that’s not loaded with 100 times more sugar than my usual option. So frustrating.
But even my usual option has added sugar, and so does all bran.
@ShiroKuro No, it made me feel worse.
My breakfast varies from eggs to crepes to pancakes to oatmeal to granola. All homemade, of course. And once in a while, cold cereal. But cold cereal is getting crossed off the list.
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Most often, breakfast is a heated Costco croissant or half a New York everything bagel. With a side of berries and coffee. I don’t have cereal that often.
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I’ve been skipping breakfast for a bit more than 10 years now and it suits me pretty well. (I dislike when people call it. Intermittent fasting. I am not fasting, I just eat at different times.)
The only exception is when I’m traveling for work and the hotel has a free breakfast buffet. all bets are off then….
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We were in a London Hotel this weekend, nice enough, the breakfast was a bit pretentiously healthy; vegan oat granola, with a selection of fruit, nuts and seeds to add, oat or dairy milks; and also sourdough bread with butter & choice of Bonmamon jams. Orange juice, tea - mostly herbals, coffees.
I never asked but as the oat cereal was claggy, it had some form of sugar holding it together (vegans don't have honey?)
I reflected again on what a niece explained to me, that pretty much all boxed cereals including the healthier granola and muesli are processed to some extent, with sugar or salt to taste.
Except plain porridge oats.
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We were in a London Hotel this weekend, nice enough, the breakfast was a bit pretentiously healthy; vegan oat granola, with a selection of fruit, nuts and seeds to add, oat or dairy milks; and also sourdough bread with butter & choice of Bonmamon jams. Orange juice, tea - mostly herbals, coffees.
I never asked but as the oat cereal was claggy, it had some form of sugar holding it together (vegans don't have honey?)
I reflected again on what a niece explained to me, that pretty much all boxed cereals including the healthier granola and muesli are processed to some extent, with sugar or salt to taste.
Except plain porridge oats.
But not all have anything more than grain and nuts. Bob’s Red Mill is like that and I’ve seen others.
