Are your cornflakes healthy?

I totally agree about the small portion sizes quoted on cereal packets, John. Comparing the amount of fat, sugar, salt and kJ (or Calories) per 100g is the best option.

Manufacturers of ready meals often use the same tactic of quoting small portion sizes to try to fool customers into believing that their products represent more healthy eating than is the case.

Further to my previous comment . . .

To be fair to Kellogg’s and other manufacturers, clear labelling has now started to appear on the front of cereal packets as the older stock is consumed and it is now becoming easier to compare brands. Unfortunately, the portion sizes are not consistent across brands and not even across different products from the same manufacturer. So I can only give them One Star at the moment. Must try harder.

That’s a powerful combination Malcolm, All-Bran and Rice Krispies. At least it’ll keep you going all day with a snap, crackle and pop.

Malcolm – I have suggested that cereal boxes contain more fibre than the contents on a couple of occasions. Even the worst examples of junk food do contribute to our nutrition. Fibre does not contribute much to human nutrition because most of it is not digested, but it is undoubtedly an important component of our diet.

Cardboard – is that how you are getting fibre with NO added salt NOR sugar

Porridge oats, beans of various types, green vegetables, potatoes, etc. There’s plenty of fibre available without added salt and sugar.

I would imagine that the manufacturers know how questionable their products are and that by suggesting such small portions, they’re attempting to limit their guilt when almost everyone has more.

Some will warn you about saturated fats and salt in that piece of bacon. I would be a lot more worried about carcinogenic nitrosamines produced from nitrites used in bacon curing. Sometimes we worry too much and sometimes about the wrong things.

As far as I can remember, Alpen was the first of what are now referred to as ‘Swiss-style mueslis’ which are loaded with sugar and milk powder. 🙁 I hope the Swiss don’t eat that and I did not see anything like Alpen during my one visit to Switzerland.

With a significant number of the population developing wheat intolerance, perhaps we should be eating less wheat and more oats. Don’t tell everyone about porridge oats, Julie. Someone will see an opportunity to increase the price.

Long before Alpen was around in supermarkets, my mother would sometimes buy us a “swiss style” muesli called “familia” from our local health food shop. I remember it being much nicer than Alpen. A quick “google” shows that, at least, its product name is still in use, as offered by Amazon (etc.).

I very much agree Geoff. Sugar is a common component of commercial soups, but I doubt many put sugar in homemade soups.

Unfortunately the problem is not just sugar but refined carbohydrates that are rapidly metabolised to produce sugar. But getting the manufactures to stop including sugar in their recipes would be a good start.

Something tells me you haven’t bought crisps for some time now, The current offering from Walkers is only 25g.

I tend to go for the 150g bags of crisps, though not often and definitely not for breakfast.

Contemplating the Kellogg’s Porridge packet while munching my muesli, I see that this is marked both ‘new’ and ‘Simply Original’. The Royal Warrant is consigned to the bottom of the packet too. And this ‘new’ product does not have the ‘traffic light’ nutrition labels we were promised. Maybe Kellogg’s need to pension of their current design team. 🙂

Beryl – The disaccharide lactose (milk sugar) is split into the monosaccharides glucose and galactose by an enzyme called beta-galactosidase, often referred to as lactase. As far as I know, this happens in the small intestine, so the delay in transit means that there is not the same peak in blood glucose that occurs if we eat sugar. The digestion of sugar (sucrose, a disaccharide of fructose and glucose) starts in the mouth, when food mixes with an enzyme called salivary amylase. Apologies for the biochemistry lesson. 🙂

For most people, milk is a very useful component of their diet though low fat milk is a good way of cutting down on saturated fat intake. Some people are lactose intolerant, because their bodies produce insufficient lactase. One of the solutions is to use milk that has been treated with lactase to decrease the amount of lactose. Alternatively, soya ‘milk’ is available.

Beryl

The sugars in milk and fruit are almost harmless: you should not eliminate or reduce milk intake because it is a VITAL source of Calcium for the bones. But you should include milk in your calorie count.

Fruit drinks are different because once the fruit is juiced, all the sugars are released and it becomes are bad as cola or other sugar heavy drinks. So drink those in extreme moderation and clean your teeth afterwards because those sugars rot your teeth.

Eat well by eating a wide variety of foods and don’t pig out on any one type of food – even so called super-foods. It’s all bunkum and tommy rot. As long as your not ill, just eat a variety of healthy fresh foods in moderation and you’ll stay fit and won’t get fat or ill. Avoid processed foods because they aren’t healthy and will make you fat.

Terfar and Wavechange

Quite right…….which begs the question why do cereal produces add extra sugar when presumably there is a healthy sufficiency contained in the milk? This surely is a ploy to add to their sales figures in a very competitive market where taste sells at the expense of nutrition. (Sorry I hope I have not opened a new “can of worms”!!!!!

With fruit juice it is easy to consume far more sugar than we are likely to do by eating fresh fruit.

We are encouraged to eat five portions of fruit & veg each day, but better advice might be to have three of each.

Beryl – You are quite right that food manufacturers add sugar to sell their products, and the same applies with salt. Which? taste tests have confirmed that many prefer products with more sugar and salt.

Until today, I thought that porridge oats were immune to the meddling of food processors. As I mentioned above, I was given a packet of ‘new Kellogg’s Special K Multi-Grain Porridge’. As soon as I tasted it I realised that the fetid stuff contained sugar or sweetener. Inspection of the nutritional information revealed that it contains 14% sugars. 🙁

If people want to put sugar and salt in their food they can manage to do that for themselves.

Malcolm
Do you know whether it is the chocolate or the sugar that is addictive or both? I believe that sugar is highly addictive and like alcohol one can build up a tolerance which if taken to excess can alter the delicate balance of neurotransmitters in the brain controlling the pain/pleasure sensation. If for example you decide to go on a diet and cut out all surgery junk foods for a few weeks, when you come off the diet you will probably find everything surgery tastes sickly sweet. The same could be said of salt. There are also certain medical conditions when sufferers tend to require a higher intake of salt. Another example – it is well documented that sugar is a great temporary stress reliever as most women can relate to at certain times of their monthly cycle which is hormone controlled.

I disagree with your comment re “cranks and sugar being a poison”. Although thankfully not being diabetic myself I’m sure anyone reading your comments who is would probably take exception.

Whoops! Apologies Malcolm I should have addressed my last comment to
Wavechange!!!

Beryl – I believe that there is ample evidence that both sugar and chocolate are addictive. I have read some good articles in New Scientist over the years.

I suspect that there are big differences between individuals. I hope that no-one craves sugar or chocolate in the same way that alcoholics do with alcohol.

Your experience with food tasting very sweet after excluding it from your diet is very common. I’m sure you are right about neurotransmitters but simple conditioning of what to expect may also be a factor. I don’t drink sweet drinks routinely and if given them I find them horribly sweet. On the other hand, I eat sweet biscuits and they don’t taste excessively sweet. I assume this is because I’m conditioned to unsweetened drinks and eating sweet biscuits.

Perhaps I should defend my provocative comment about sugar not being a poison. I can munch my way through a packet of stem ginger cookies and suffer no more than guilt. Patrick has posted today about pancakes containing banana, syrup and Nutella. Providing that we don’t do this on a regular basis and are in a reasonable state of health we have not been poisoned. Obviously high sugar consumption can lead to obesity and other health problems, and a greatly increased risk of developing diabetes. Unfortunately, there are some people who believe that sugar is definitely a poison and must be avoided at all costs. As a scientist I think it is wrong to be dishonest.

Those of us who are worried about sugar in food need to work together with Which? and other organisations that are trying to tackle the problem.

“We need manufacturers to offer us healthier foods”. Firstly, we can pick what we eat, we don’t have to use heavily processed or adulterated manufactured foods. We could have more effort put into educating us about the problems with manufactured foods, and enable us to choose food more carefully. We need to encourage a culture of looking out for ourselves, and not relying on government or anyone else to take over that responsibility by banning ot taxing.
I looked at our packet of M&S porridge – contents oats and gluten, and no more. I take full responsibility for making it with whole milk and sprinkling sugar or drizzling golden syrup on the top. I don’t want that to be taxed, thank you.
Incidentally, I understand obesity can have (at least) two causes. One is eating the wrong foods to excess (where education might help those who care); another is lack of a hormone which normally suppresses appetite – so out of your personal control. Can that hormone be provided artificially? We can’t blame all obesity on the food manufacturers, can we? But why some continue to consume large quantities of fizzy drinks and fatty burgers knowing it makes many chubby is a question worth investigating?

I absolutely agree on the need for self-control, Malcolm. It’s debatable whether we can rely on parents to do the necessary education, especially those that have a poor diet themselves. I do believe our food manufacturers have some responsibility for helping us tackle the problem rather than just saying that they are committed to healthy eating. It particularly annoys me when a new low fat version of a product appears, but there is no mention that this contains a lot more sugar than the original recipe.

Synthetic hormones may help some people, though I fear that they could be misused.

Perhaps they know that pensioners often wait until food is sold off at half price or less when it reaches its ‘use by’ date. That affects the profit of the retailer and producer in turn.

There was a Conversation entitled ‘Food traffic light labels – the big switch on’ last June, but it attracted few comments. I am very disappointed that food manufacturers have not been using these labels and rang Kellogg’s about this yesterday.

To add a little balance in the sugar debate, it used to be common to eat toast with marmalade at breakfast time, washed down with tea or coffee – often laced with sugar. Traditional preserves such as marmalade and jam contain loads of sugar. Granny’s home baking was full of it. Though I am very keen that food manufacturers cut down their use of sugar, there is clearly a long tradition of eating the stuff. Like Malcolm, I reckon that we need some self-restraint rather than legislation such as sugar tax. If we are going to have legislation, perhaps we should go for compulsory ‘traffic light’ labels instead.

Another problem is that bakeries including those in supermarkets do not have nutrition information on products such as bread baked on the premises. Another Conversation alerted me to the amount of salt in bread. There is another one mentioning the amount of sugar and salt in tomato soup. Some contain as much as six teaspoons of sugar per can. I doubt if many people put sugar in home-made soup.

Please could an editor fix Beryl’s link, which does not work.

I think there were big differences back then. We didn’t have central heating; being cold used up more energy. We walked or cycled to school or work. We were much more active. We didn’t slouch at the computer all day, didn’t watch TV for hour upon hour (mainly because there were only 1 or 2 channels for just a few hours a day), kids went out to play instead of being glued to computer games and/or antisocial networking, no mobile phones so you went out to talk to friends, we went out to the pub and cinemas…

We actually need much less food but actually consume far more calories than ever. Crazy, isn’t it!

I agree Terfar – it is crazy. It is easy to see the causes of the problem but harder to find practical solutions.

I used to work with a fellow scientist who was keen on being fit and eating a sensible diet. After he moved away I went to stay with his family and witnessed his young children tucking in to unsweetened grapefruit for breakfast. They had obviously not been conditioned into thinking that something like grapefruit requires sugar to make it palatable.

wavechange & terfar

If you are having trouble downloading my link you could try -http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/sugaraddiction and scroll down the page until you find BBC Science – Why is sugar so addictive? (Subject of course to Which? approval.) Shouldn`t be a problem as it was approved the first time. (It verges on your sweet drink v stem ginger biscuit dilemma wavechange!!}

I concur with your comments terfar – have just been researching the positive effect of exercise on brain neurons which is currently being substituted with sugar `fixes` due to the more sedentary lifestyle you commented on.

It is indeed crazy when you hear the media talking of things like “if things don`t change we are more likely to outlive our children.”

terfar, we also played where it was dirty and I’m sure built up immunity. I had toast and dripping at breakfast, sausages didn’t contain much meat, took sugar in tea, liked sweetened condensed milk by the spoonful ……and survived. I still have a sweet tooth, and relish dripping at Christmas when we have ribs of beef, but no longer like sugar in tea or coffee.

Please don’t deny me my stem ginger cookies, Beryl. I avoid getting into a routine of eating them daily by finishing the packet in one day. 🙂

I should add that I don’t buy them very often. Like Malcolm’s dripping and Patrick’s pancakes, they are an occasional treat.

I still can’t get your link to work, but have had a similar problem myself. I assume you are referring to an article called ‘Why is sugar so addictive?’ published on 22 March 2013.

Not to worry too much about the stem ginger biscuits Wavechange apparently ginger is supposed to have anticoagulant properties and is a popular remedy for sea and air sickness!

Thanks Beryl. I will treat myself soon, but try and make the packet last two days. 🙂

I will try ginger for travel sickness. Whether there is a genuine reason or the placebo effect, I need it.

wavechange, biscuits are bad for you (as are most things we like). For concentrated goodness you could try ginger preserved in syrup – I have a jar (probably even worse than biscuits). It seems surprising that despite all these killer foods, we are living longer and longer, no doubt partly assisted by medical science. Just how much older do we want to get before we expire, though? Think of the burden we place on our families and the state – NHS and pensions. Perhaps we should not be encouraging too healthy a lifestyle in case we break the whole economic system?

Malcolm – I am strongly of the view that if a reasonably healthy person has a reasonable diet overall, there is no need to worry too much about what happens from day to day. It is fairly clear that being overweight or obese progressively increases our chances of all sorts of health problems, just as smoking and drinking too much alcohol does. The NHS ‘eatwell plate’ includes foods that are high in fat and/or sugar – like my stem ginger cookies or stem ginger in syrup. This has been heavily criticised but I defend it as reflecting the fact that most people will eat foods that would not be good for them as a major component of their diet.

It does concern me that food manufacturers are including sugar in their products where it is not needed. Does anyone add sugar if they eat corn on the cob? Of course not. Then why is it added to cornflakes?

Most of us have adopted a lifestyle based on consumption. Spend, spend, spend on domestic and personal goods, services and entertainment. Not surprisingly, we are encouraged to buy far more food than we need.

wavechange, totally agree. We eat what we enjoy – and we do enjoy food – but it is a varied diet. It does include some good-quality prepared food, but also fresh fruit and vegetables. Corn on the cob is best eaten when cooked after picking straight from the plant – as sweet as anything before it starts to turn too starchy. Easy to grow. Sugar seems to be added to low-fat food to replace the flavour – another fad that has a hidden downside.

I have noticed how corn cobs become less sweet as they age, the reverse of what happens with ripening bananas. How about corn on the cob for breakfast or as a new dessert – sweet but not excessively so. 🙂

Artificial sweeteners have come in for a huge amount of criticism, and even the plant-based product stevia has not escaped. I see sugar and sweeteners as jointly guilty of giving many of us a sweet tooth.

@ Beryl

Ginger is widely known as a palliative and digestive
amongst Chinese… little wonder they use them so
often in their cuisines. It’s the third of a trinity of
garlic and spring onions that they invariably use
with rare exceptions.

It always strikes me as odd that someone invents a complex process that takes all the value out of a natural product and then sticks in other stuff to make it more acceptable. Shrinkansen, your revelation could spawn a whole new conversation on the hidden history of food products – and maybe reveal the unwanted side-effects of some currently on the shelves. I’ve decided to never eat cornflakes again – just in case..

Just to add a little balance, cornflakes are not the only food where processing has not helped the nutritional content. White bread and anything else made from white flour lacks the nutritional content of products made of wholemeal flour. White rice is nutritionally inferior to brown rice – which has not been processed. Cooking invariably decreases the nutritional value of food, even though it can make it safe and palatable to eat.

Cornflakes were introduced at a time when food adulteration was commonplace, so they might be a relatively safe choice of food. Though I wish that Kellogg’s would focus on producing healthy breakfast cereals with no added sugar at least they avoid genetically manipulated maize and the sweetener they use is sugar rather than high-fructose corn syrup. HFCS is cheaper than sugar but is more likely to encourage obesity. Wikipedia lists HFCS as a component of Kelloggs’ cornflakes but it looks as if the company has responded to concerns about HFCS by reverting to use of sugar. Incidentally, Wikipedia covers the unusual history, mentioned by Shinkansen, of Kellogg’s cornflakes.

I have heard we could live totally on potatoes? Is that true? Jacket potatoes with the skin oiled to make it even crisper are delicious – perhaps we could develop a breakfast cereal from those?

Might be OK for vegetarians Malcolm!

Potatoes have a poor reputation but are quite good as a staple food, providing the skins are eaten. On their own, they don’t contain enough of some nutrients such as the fat-soluble vitamins, certain minerals and essential fatty acids to provide an adequate human diet for an extended period.

Potatoes have a fairly high glycaemic index – like cornflakes. The starch is metabolised quickly, causing a rapid rise in the concentration of glucose in the bloodstream.

It is possible Malcolm but not recommended by today’s standards for reasons already detailed by Wavechange. In the 1800’s 3 million Irish peasants subsisted solely on it which is why so many became victims of the Irish famine when the crops failed.

Van Gogh’s famous portrait ‘The Potato Eaters’ clearly depicts the plight of peasants during the
period.

Strange as it may seem the potato originated in S. America and was introduced into Europe by the Spanish conquerors.

It would be interesting to establish the order in which people choose their particular cereal. Is it taste as in sugar content, texture as in snap crackle and pop, or nutritional value and how much parents can be influenced by their children’s fads and fancies not forgetting of course clever advertising by producers. Hopefully not a chicken, egg situation!

Price followed by anything that’s not obviously covered in sugar, like Shreddies.

Beryl – I avoid the popular breakfast cereals and go for muesli. I always check to make sure that unfamiliar products have little or no added sugar or milk powder. I usually avoid the ‘luxury’ mueslis that contain a lot of fruit (and sugar) and a lot of nuts (and fat).

I mix my own muesli – usually jumbo oats, rye flakes, wheat flakes, sunflower seeds, plus some dried fruit and chopped nuts. I eat this with a banana and soya milk – delicious!

I hope Porrige and Weetabix are both OK, because that’s what I usually consume for brekkers too.

Beryl – Fruit and dried fruit generally contain fructose (fruit sugar). Manufactured fructose is the same as natural fructose. If you ate dried fruit without chewing it, that would slow the release of fructose, but I don’t know whether the delay is significant with normal eating.

Muesli is not low in sugar, thanks to the fruit content, so there is absolutely no need for the manufacturers to add any more.

Weetabix certainly contains added sugar. Porridge oats don’t usually, but I have mentioned a recently introduced porridge that does. 🙁

Sugar is a very common component of both natural and manufactured food. My view is that we should try to avoid foods with added sugar and not feel too guilty about eating chocolate, stem ginger cookies, or whatever we like. If we overdo the sugar there is a greater chance of diabetes and being denied our treats.

Beryl,

It is easy to make your own muesli from any of the following ingredients found at health food shops and supermarkets:
Raw porridge oats
Oat bran
Raw chopped nuts
Seeds like sunflower, pumpkin

The above is for a dairy-free, diet-controlled diabetic but you could also add yoghurt, other cereals and fruit making sure dried fruit has no added sugar.

I support the ASA ruling. It is disappointing that the ingredients list does not appear to be on the Oppo website and drawing attention to the fact that Holland & Barrett sell it is enough to put me off. Coconut oil and stevia are cheap.

Thanks to Ocado: “Fresh Milk, Milk Solids, Natural Sweetener: Erythritol & Steviol Glycosides (Stevia Leaf Extract), Cream, Fruit Extract, Virgin Coconut Oil, Lucuma, Cornflour, Sea Salt (0.2%), Natural Flavouring, Natural Colour, Emulsifier (Mono & Diglycerides), Stabilizer (Guar Gum, Sodium Alginate, Carrageenan, Locust Bean Gum)”

M&S – clotted cream vanilla ice cream – for my choice. Essentially milk, double cream, clotted cream, dried glucose syrup…….

Thanks for that info, Wavechange – Not your regular Mivvi then.

Going off-topic to discuss emulsifiers, stabilisers and ice crystal formation can add colour to a lecture on the rheological properties of various polysaccharides used in commercial ice cream manufacture to ensure that it does not have the mouthfeel of most home-made creations.

I honestly cannot remember Mivvi, but thanks to the web the learning outcome has been achieved.