From time to time I take an opportunity to post an entry about my disdain for breakfast cereal or, perhaps more aptly, breakfast candy. It was in the 1970’s that concerns began to arise about the sugar content in breakfast cereals. From my point of view, once this was brought to our attention as consumers, a reasonable response would have been to lower the sugar content in breakfast cereal products. But that is not what happened. Instead, the industry’s response was to remove the word “sugar” from the names of the products. The content and concept of sweetness were preserved without using the actual word. Across the land, the “sugar” on cereal boxes was replaced with “honey,” “frosted,” “golden,” “sprinkles,” and/or “cocoa.” Sugar Smacks became Honey Smacks, Sugar Crisp became Golden Crisp. Mascots, a powerful marketing tool in and of themselves, received new names. Sugar Bear became Super Bear. The industry continued to use the same recipes that appealed to children and the sugar-saturated American palate. With time, new adult markets developed as children grew into adults with a taste for the sweet stuff they had grown used to in childhood.

What follows is a list of selected breakfast cereals straight from the shelves at my local supermarket. If you didn’t know this was a list of breakfast cereals, you might think it was a list of options at a bakery or candy shop. Note the overt references to foods we typically consider dessert: Chocolate Chip Cookie Crisp, Vanilla Wafer Cookie Crisp, Oatmeal Cookie Crisp, Double Chocolate Cookie Crisp, Cookie Crisp Sprinkles, Honey Bunches of Oats, Honey Nut Cheerios, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cocoa Puffs, Cocoa Pebbles, Smore’s Crunch, Smore’s Grahams, Honey Smacks, Frosted Mini-Wheats, Golden Grahams, Cinnamon Life Cereal, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Frosted Flakes, Super Sugar Crisp (also called Golden Crisp, Super Crisp, Honey Crisp), Honey Nut O’s, Honeycomb, Honey Nut Clusters, Honey Graham Marshmallows, Cocoa Puffs, Frosted Flakes, Cap’n Crunch, Count Chocula, Lucky Charms (magically delicious!). There are also “frooty” products, which are not the same as “fruit.” Apple Cinnamon Cheerios, Froot Loops, Raisin Bran (one of the higher sugar cereals on the market), Fruity Pebbles, Frankenberry, Boo Berry, Apple Jacks all fall into this category.

Are there any nutritious cereals at all?  Back in 2008, Consumer Reports rated 23 of the top 27 cereals marketed to children as only Good or Fair for nutrition. Eleven of the 23 cereals they tested contained as much sugar as a glazed Dunkin’ doughnut.

What about Cheerios? Cheerios, marketed as a nourishing cereal option, is an interesting product. It is billed as a whole-grain product, and the first ingredient in Cheerios (originally Cheery-oats) is, indeed, whole oats. The next ingredient, however, is food starch. The third ingredient is modified food starch. This means that there is probably as much, if not more, total food starch in Cheerios as there is whole grain. Food starch is usually derived from wheat or corn, whichever is cheaper at the time of purchase. Starch is a simple chain of rapidly digested sugar molecules. Throughout history it has been used as a thickener, stiffening, or gluing agent. It is used extensively in ultraprocessed foods and is, for obvious reasons, a frequent cause of constipation.

There is one more category of breakfast cereal worth reviewing here. These are products marketed specifically to adults, and whose names — Product 19, Fiber 1, Total, Special K — are reminiscent not of candy but, rather, research. Each of these cereals has a scientific-sounding name, as if to support the argument that it’s been proven nourishing. But is it? Were 18 mixtures, lined up in identical little Ehrlenmeyer flasks, rejected one at a time, until they reached the 19th one, which turned out to be precisely the mixture you need to start your day? What is so special about Special K, anyway? And what makes Fiber 1 number one? What I do know is that none of these products has the nutritional density to keep me satisfied until lunchtime unless I add a midmorning snack.

If these products aren’t nearly as nourishing as we’ve been led to believe, then what are our options? Speaking from personal experience, the first thing I would say is that sudden changes are not usually welcome. So I would not toss out all the breakfast cereal. Instead, I removed it from its original box and put it into a large airtight container. Then I kept the container full, periodically adding small amounts of nutritious foods to the container. Rolled oats, peanuts, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, raisins, sesame seeds, coconut flakes, almonds, dried apples. Until the jar was mostly full of real food, and the amount of cereal constituted just a small percentage of the total contents of the jar. 

I would also serve bowls of cereal alongside more nourishing options, like hard-boiled or scrambled eggs, cheddar cheese, fruit, nuts, whole milk, yogurt, peanut butter, avocado toast, sweet potatoes. Or I might treat it like dessert, and offer it after dinner.