Recently, after the publication of an article listing breakfast cereals for children, there were a lot of questions about the theoretically healthier ones, whole grain cereals and muesli. So I decided to go to the store and check if they are really as good as it might seem. Conclusions? Finding good flakes is not a big problem, but there are also those with a slightly worse composition.
How to measure yourself? (part I)
They even cheat us on eggs!
Companies such as Nestle, Bakalland or Sante have been on the market for many years and have already built up a good reputation. Many customers believe that their product is healthy and of good quality. In fact, things are a bit different. Not all of their products are worth recommending. Some examples below:
- Nestle Fitness Yogurt – Marketing campaigns and packaging unequivocally suggest that it is a product for people who care about their figure and wanting to eat properly. However, in the composition, sugar under different characters are fished up to five times! It is added in quite a bit a large amount to the flakes themselves and to the yoghurt topping. Total sugars simple ones constitute nearly 1/4 of the product. It is very similar in other flavors of these petals.
- Crunchy Bakalland muesli – these flakes contain only slightly less sugar than Nestle Fitness. Additionally, the composition includes a dye – caramel ammoniacal. Its impact on health is not yet fully understood and it’s better to avoid it. However, it is quite low for this type of product dietary fiber content.
- Granola Sante – In traditional recipes for granola, added sugar or honey does not surprise anyone. But when preparing homemade granola, I guess no one adds sugar, cane sugar, cane molasses at the same time and glucose syrup. And these are the ingredients on the label of this product.
Are all the cereal you buy full of sugar?
Cereal flakes are certainly a wholesome product worth starting each day with. They provide energy and also contain a lot of vitamins and minerals. But as the examples above show, not all of them are so cool. Fortunately, adding sugar is not a rule and you can easily find better equivalents. You just have to read the labels.
The producers mentioned above also offer more attractive health-related propositions. An example of this is Musli without added LO sugar by Sante, or Musli Classic by Nestle. These flakes can be recommended even to people who are on a slimming diet.
More expensive does not always mean healthier.
In the case of flakes, the statement that the cheaper product has to be of lower quality is not always correct. On store shelves, the eye is attracted mainly by colorful packaging, which we know from TV commercials and billboards. And that’s what we use most often. However, as it turns out, a less advertised product, not necessarily packed in a beautiful cardboard box, will often be a healthier choice. Often muesli and cereals that cost less than the brand name ones are better than them, because they usually contain only mixed cereals, nuts and dried fruit, without unnecessary sugar added.
Nevertheless, the cheapest and the tastiest will be a hand-made mixture of your favorite ingredients. All you need is cereal (e.g. oatmeal or rye), dried fruit and nuts.
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