What's in Your Bowl?
At my daughter’s Sportplay class, the Coach (the legendary Coach Mike) asked the kids what the had for breakfast, and at least three of them said “Rice Krispies”. Rice Krispies, are they kidding? That is not breakfast, it is an ingredient in an unhealthy, but quick-to-make bake sale treat.
Maybe some of them were copying each other, but I was still surprised (do I mean sanctimonious here? Maybe I do) that kids were sent out the door with an empty treat. Most cereal that comes out of a box is not good for you and it is especially not good to start out the day. And a new study, by the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity ranked popular breakfast cereals and compared them to the amount of money spent on their marketing.I know it’s not a shock to find out that cereals with the words chocolate and cookie in it are not healthy. But check out Corn Pops and Special K, blueberry, they are in the bottom 10 nutrition-wise. The study may also confirm that niggling feeling that you have inside -- that the most unhealthy cereals, are the ones that are being the most aggressively marketed to your kids.
The 10 least-healthy cereals:
If you have ever watched the kids' TV channels, you know how much cereal advertising there is, a trend that obviously started when I was a kid which resulted in one of favourite sayings: "Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids!" According to the study young kids see an average of 644 cereal ads a year, and almost all of them, are you guessed it, in the bottom 10 when it comes to nutrition.
And Rice Krispies – the sodium content is in the stratosphere and their lack of protein don’t really make them such a good breakfast choice.
But how am I doing on the hypocrisy score? Well, my kids eat instant oatmeal (the reduced sugar one) with flax and chia seeds mixed in. And it's not on the list, but I used the Advanced Search available on the website and it lands right in the middle with a nutritional score of 50. I’m giving myself extra points for all the crunchy stuff I throw in. I would feel better if they ate the more wholesome oatmeal that I make but compromise is part of parenting, especially in the morning.
The good news is that cereals such as Lucky Charms are going to have to remove their Smart Choices label. After a lot of public derision (some of it started by Michael Pollan), the panel decided that products that were 50% sugar are maybe not such a smart choice after all.
Posted by: sue | 2009-11-11 1:22:03 PM
Okay, well, mine at rice crisipies and chocolate rice crispies for their first breakfast - by they are the brown rice kind :-) and then they often have a second breakfast ....