How much sugar is in your breakfast bowl?

I have fond memories of Force breakfast cereal which went out of favour [and flavour unfortunately] a few years ago because of the compettion from the heavily-advertised sugar-coated products that nowadays cram the grocers’ shelves. The Force brand featured a curious character called Sunny Jim and the pack carried this little ditty: “High over the fence leaps Sunny Jim – Force is the food that nourishes him!”.

I notice that a large number of breakfast cereals now have chocolate in some shape or form to make them more appealing to the junior tooth. What might once have been a treat is now a regular part of the daily intake.

John, I suspect all these additions to basically healthy cereals are done for “added value” – aka bigger profit – by using children to put pressure on parents to buy them, like sweets were near checkouts. I can only see educating oarents to resist these sales and marketing techniques as a solution. But how do you do that? Like buying branded clothing when cheaper plain clothes do just as good a job.

29% seems very high, so I presume it is not only added sugar, but mostly the natural sugar in the dried fruit. Blueberries and bananas have a quite high content of natural sugar, so you might not be making a difference in total sugars/calories. I’m making assumptions, but with a bit of research you might find you can go back to the Waitrose product that you enjoyed.

I wondered about this too. Waitrose Fruit & Fibre is currently shown as containing about 23% sugars. We don’t know how much is present in ingredients other than the added sugar.

I’m not paranoid about sugar but seeing a label ‘No added sugar’ on a packet shows some responsibility by the manufacturer, and I am more likely to consider buying the product.

I commented in an earlier conversation last Summer/Autumn on the 29% sugar content of the Waitrose Fruit & Fibre and that figure was correct at that time. I was paying particular attention to their labelling as the text was very small in the panel. On Friday, I checked the packet in Waitrose and the sugar content is now 23% and the text in the panel is larger. Perhaps they took note of my comments.

I bought two new cereals to try out in the hope that I will find one with a reasonable sugar and fat content but without the baby food texture.

As the cereal was the only food I had for breakfast I was horrified that almost a third was sugar. How much sugar in a medium apple or banana or a tablespoon/handful of blueberries. Bananas are high in potassium, blueberries a super fruit, and an apple a day keeps the Doctor away.

Wwaitrose Fruit & Fibre – according to the product information on the website, this still has 29.4g of sugar per 100g.

http://www.waitrose.com/shop/ProductView-10317–15753-essential+Waitrose+fruit+and+fibre

You are right of course. I got my information from the Ocado website, which gives a figure of 22.7g.

I don’t like using the Waitrose site because it always tells me to turn off private browsing. I don’t want to be tracked by supermarkets, thank you.

Martin – Kelloggs has decided that porridge oats need something added to bring them into the 21st century. Sugar of course.

Maybe they could do an offer of a cheap blood glucose meter if you collect five packet tops.

We gave up trying to find a cereal suitable for a diet-controlled diabetic when in the US.

They were all too high in sugar.

As well as dried fruit having a high sugar content, nuts and seeds have a high fat content.

It’s not going to put me off starting the day with muesli.

The unfair demonising of fat – particularly saturated fat – is, I am glad to say, slowly losing ground. Increasing research is laying to rest the so-called pathological effects of fat and is stressing the benefits. Particularly interesting are the studies which show the positive effect with respect to strokes and colon cancer associated with eating saturated fats and and in particular dairy. Sugar on the other hand: At last people are realising the problems of over consumption of sugar in terms of brain health, vascular health, obesity and diabetes. To replace healthful fats with sugar and label the result “The healthy option” is one of today’s striking ironies.

Keep eating the nuts – the fats are good.

Do you make your own muesli or buy already mixed and do you know the total sugar & fat content?

Figgerty – In the days when muesli was generally so-called Swiss-style, full of sugar and milk powder, I used to buy basic muesli from places other than supermarkets. Sadly, most of them have closed. Most of my muesli is basic stuff from supermarkets, supplemented with whatever is to hand. I love nuts and seeds and should really have been a hamster. Yesterday I bought Jordans Natural Muesli, which has 16% sugar and 5% fat. Not exciting but at least the manufacturer has not felt the need to add sugar. I confess to eating twice the portion size recommended.

I make fruit salad regularly and eat that at breakfast, either separate or mixed with muesli, depending on ingredients. Unfortunately, I’m too fond of mango, which is absolutely full of sugar, and the other ingredients are not much better. What helps to restrict my intake is the fact that Waitrose ‘Perfectly Ripe’ mangoes don’t fit the description and I make about two batches of fruit salad a week.

As far as my breakfast sugar intake goes, I would probably be best to stick to kids’ cereals laced with sugar.

A couple of the Dorset Cereals mueslis don’t contain added sugar, and they a bit more interesting than the one I mentioned.

Wavechange – I too love mango and have it as a desert once or twice a week. When persimmons/sharon fruits were in plentiful supply I also had one of them as a dessert. We must have been telepathically connected when I was shopping this morning. I bought a Dorset simply delicious muesli and that has 30% fruit, nuts and seeds – no baby food mush – 17g sugar and 1.1g saturated fat. There are a couple more Dorset cereals that look interesting. My breakfast keeps me going all day and I don’t feel hungry until the evening but when I stay in a hotel or B&B and have a full cooked breakfast I run out of fuel by about 3pm.

Figgerty – Today’s fruit salad should contain mango, pineapple, persimmon, passion fruit, grapes and orange and lime juice to delay browning. Many of my ingredients are bought at reduced price in Waitrose. Much though I miss having a local greengrocer (it and the butcher closed when Tesco opened), the supermarkets sell some interesting products.

Generally the supermarkets have at least one variety of muesli that contains little or no sugar. Dorset Cereals have some interesting products with little or no sugar but I fear that with the increasing promotion, I fear that adding sugar will become one of the tactics used to increase market share. As you say, eating muesli can mean that you don’t feel hungry for hours. Some of the best muesli I have had has been from health food shops near universities (there are discerning students as well as those who live on junk food), but most of these have moved to selling supplements to people who don’t need them.

It’s good to know we share a common interest. 🙂 I nearly chose ‘mango’ for my username on W?C.

Figgerty,
If you want to make your own muesli, your local health food shop should have all the ingredients. Then you know exactly what is in it.

Alex – I had not given any thought to promotion by word of mouth. Dorset Cereals would be a good example of increased promotion by the manufacturer and possibly retailers. Rather than one or two products available not so long ago, there is a whole shelf of their products in my local supermarket. Tesco regularly discounts at least one variety. I saw two unfamiliar products yesterday. One was Raspberry porridge and the other was a variety of granola that I had not seen before. Both contain added sugar, as do quite a number of their products these days. What attracted me to Dorset Cereals in the first place was the lack of added sugar. Obviously total sugar is what matters but I try to avoid products with added sugar as a matter of principle.

The reason for my choice of username is buried in an old Conversation, obviously well off-topic.

As I posted once before, I always mix my own muesli, from ingredients bought by one of those wholefood shops near a university, as mentioned by Wavechange! Just whole-grains, nuts and seeds, with some chopped dates for a little sweetness, served with a chopped banana and unsweetened soy-milk. Very simple and absolutely delicious – I wouldn’t want to start the day any other way, and it keeps me from feeling hungry all morning.

Hi Esther. It’s good to hear from someone else with a passion for muesli. As you say, it’s not difficult to make and even if using a base mix it’s nice to add bits and pieces. In the days before muesli became popular (I don’t count the Swiss-style stuff as muesli) I used to take my own when staying in an hotel, rejecting the Kelloggs variety packs or whatever was on offer.

If I did not have muesli for breakfast I would not last until lunchtime without breaking out the stem ginger cookies.

High fructose corn syrup has been demonised but it’s just another way that we are fed sugar by the manufacturers of processed foods. I’m more concerned about the amount of refined carbohydrate we eat, since that is quickly digested to produce sugar. Unrefined carbohydrates and most vegetables are better because they are digested more slowly than sugars and refined carbohydrates.

There’s no doubt that smoking can be an effective way of controlling weight but I have vivid memories of a former neighbour with chronic emphysema attributed to smoking. She spent the last ten years of her life on continuous oxygen therapy.

Smoking kills more than the appetite if we are to believe all medical and scientific information. I smoked until I was 30 years old and gave up because I wanted to buy a more expensive house. I smoked about 40 per day and stayed slim without effort. Now I have to try hard to not gain any weight. Cutting down on saturated fat and sugar was my attempt to lose weight – a .vain attempt, I’m afraid.

John, perhaps the Govt could pass a law that all food containing an excess of fattening ingredients should be place on very narrow aisles that would prevent certain people getting access. It is good to hear that childhood obesity seems to have peaked; I wonder whether that is down to education ?

Yes Malcolm, I was wondering that myself, but then it occurred to me that I often find myself helping people in wheelchairs or on mobility scooters to reach products in supermarkets and it seemed to me that the whole layout and organisation of these stores is incredibly awkward for such customers, so any strategic repositioning of food along those lines would not be a good idea.

I noticed the headline on childhood obesity and that one possible explanation for the levelling-off in the under-10’s was that “public health campaigns and initiatives could be starting to work”. That would indicate a parental response to such influences rather than by children of their own volition [it being significant that no such decline is apparent in the 11-15 age group where the children have more determination over their food choice and intake level]. Another suggested explanation was that “a ceiling or ‘saturation point’ had been reached with obesity rates”; I would say it’s far too early to make that call, and looking across the Atlantic it appears to me that, without clinical intervention, there is a tendency for obesity to persist incrementally – but at diminishing rates – until complete incapacitation occurs. While statistically there might be a ceiling for obesity rates, in each individual case there might not be a ‘saturation point’ before termination.

I agree, Beryl, but how do we help those children whose parents don’t act responsibly? As I see it, peer pressure has become as important if not more so than parental guidance in some areas.

I would like to see sugar and sugar-rich ingredients such as honey disappear from breakfast cereals as one of the food industry’s contributions to more healthy eating. I appreciate that cereals can be very rich in natural sugar but it would be a step in the right direction. Maybe designing a conspicuous logo that all manufacturers could use on products that contain no added sugar might be helpful.

Wavechange: The FSA need to differentiate between natural and added sugar content and set guidelines on the two. I agree cereal packets should contain a warning such as “This product contains a higher content of ADDED SUGAR than is recommended for a healthy diet.” Or something more simple such as “WATCH YOUR FIGURE – EAT LESS SUGAR.” There are few words that rhyme with sugar but maybe Which? could start a campaign to see who could come up with the best logo and pass it onto the FSA.

If the message is aimed at parents health, maybe this in turn would be passed onto their kids.

Apologies for shouting but hopefully justified in this instance!

Beryl – That is an excellent slogan. A Which Campaign would be great because the food industry is manipulating what we eat and breakfast cereals are a good example of this. The problems of obesity and diabetes in later life are very well known by the general public and it would be great to have someone from Which? on TV news telling us about the launch of this campaign.

In the meantime, I will continue to look for my favourite label: NO ADDED SUGAR.

Wavechange: If all low sugar products were also targeted with logos to promote the health benefits of no added sugar it may assist in differentiating between the two. I don’t think the traffic light system is very effective due to its very small size and inconspicuous siting at shelf level.

Another problem with the traffic light system is that there are still manufacturers that are not using it. There is also opposition to adoption of the system within other European countries, which could result in lack of progress or even abandonment of the system.

I cannot see a problem with people adding sugar or sweetener to breakfast cereal if they feel the need. (That approach works with salt.) Obviously that’s not relevant to cakes, biscuits and many other products, which is why we need to know the total sugar content.

Some opposition in Europe, particularly from Italy, suggests the traffic light system is too simplistic and will hinder trade. They, naturally, want to protect their own products (as would, and do, some of our food producers) that may contain high levels of salt and fat – cheese and ham for example. However I believe only a simple system will help most people who care in their choice of food – particularly those with dietary problems; GDA is unlikely to be of wide benefit in the same way if people don’t fully understand it.

However, I’d be happy to see it continue as a voluntary system – it has its flaws and I resist the imposition of flawed legislation.

I don’t understand how the traffic light system is simplistic and unlike the various alternatives that predate it, it has the advantage of standardisation. I believe that people need to be reminded that some foods contain a lot of salt, sugar, fat and saturated fat. The traffic light system does this admirably. These foods can be enjoyed as part of a balanced diet.

As far as trade goes, if all companies are selling a product such as cheese or ham that merits one or more ‘red traffic light’ symbols, then it should not affect competition. It might affect overall sales of that product but I suggest that public health is a more important factor than the profitability of businesses.

To go off topic a little, ham contains salt and nitrites, used as preservatives. Soaking ham before cooking helps to remove to remove them and anyone put off by salty foods could find ham much more enjoyable, as I do.

I would like to see added sugar and natural sugars listed separately on all food labelling.

Putting content in %, weight or volume is detailed information. Putting this detailed information into jst three bands – such as low / medium / high is simplistic.

I would think that whilst presenting this data in either form is useful, I suspect what matters more than your “reference intake” or “guidance daily allowance” is your weekly or monthly intake, and I wonder how many people can or will calculate this from all the foods they buy, or need to if they eat a balanced diet. For those where it essential because of health issues the detailed information will be the one they need to use.

As I said, I am in favour of an indicator like traffic lights but do not think it appropriate to legislate for it. Legislate for disclosing detailed contents of fat, saturates, sugars, salt.

The traffic light labels have not replaced the figures. It is now much easier to look along the shelves and see, for example, which packs have an amber label and which have a red one. For those who are not up to paying attention to the numbers, having the traffic light labels is a useful visual indicator.

Presentation of information depends on how it is used, so a bar chart or pie chart would be ideal when doing a PowerPoint presentation, whereas a table of figures would suit a printed technical article. We already had the information in writing and now we have the traffic light labels. We can have our cake and eat it – as long as we keep an eye on the nutritional information, of course.

It would be interesting to know how we decide what to eat and what to buy. There are those who count calories and others who pay particular attention to omega 3, various vitamins, and so on, whether or not this relates to a health problem. Many of us vary the amount and choice of foods in response to our weight and health advice from various sources.

We have legislation for many foods and it would be good to see nutritional information for everything we buy, even if that cannot be given accurately. For example, a small baker might not have the same quality control as a factory churning out thousands of loaves for supermarkets. It was Which? that drew my attention to the amount of salt in bread. I loathe salty food but bread does not taste salty to me.

Puffed wheat does not seem to be a trade mark and I cannot remember which company made it when I was a kid. It does seem to be available from the supermarkets – hopefully without sugar, honey, golden syrup or chocolate.

During an earlier Conversation about sugar-rich breakfast cereal I contacted a well known manufacturer to complain about one of their new products. I had a really interesting discussion and received some vouchers in the post. I searched the packets on the supermarket shelves and came to the conclusion that none of their products was free from sugar.

I seem to remember puffed wheat needed a big spoonful of sugar to make it edible, perhaps a child’s sweet taste! I didn’t like it much anyway.

These days I don’t put any sugar on cereal even porridge. Flahavan’s is 100% oats with 1.3% natural sugar.

I have often been told that Scots traditionally put salt on their porridge. That seems as unnecessary as sugar. The new agency Food Standards Scotland may have its work cut out.

alfa, we used to have Puffed Wheat (Quaker I think) in preference to cornflakes when I was young. But I agree, it needed sugar both to add sweetness and a bit of crunch. same as cornflakes (which I rarely eat). I’m not sure you can get basic puffed wheat now can you? Does it all have “value added” ingredients?

I was once told that Kellogg’s were required to add the vitamins etc to their cornflakes because the processing destroyed those that were present in the ingredients. I don’t think there is any doubt that making corn flakes and other popular cereals, but I have never seen anything about a legal requirement.

I believe there is a requirement to add vitamins A and D to margarine, dating from when it was introduced as an alternative to butter.

Malcolms reply posted on the 2nd has just got into my inbox !!! 5 days for an email?

Must get the award for snail mail of the week.

People in my parents’ generation grew up eating bread and potatoes. Rice is the staple food in some countries. It’s unreasonable to blame obesity on carbohydrates.

It’s well known that refined carbohydrates are rapidly converted into sugars, so apart from causing less tooth decay, they are not much better than eating sugar. That does not mean to say that all carbohydrates are bad. Many of us are aware of the fact that porridge is more sustaining than cornflakes. To lump unrefined and complex carbohydrates together with sugars and refined carbohydrates would not be helpful.

In the past couple of decades I have met plenty of diet-controlled diabetics who include unrefined carbohydrate in their diet and get on fine.

To get back to the breakfast cereals, I believe that the first step should be to get rid of added sugar. The message that eating refined carbohydrates is not much better than eating sugar applies to much more than breakfast cereals.

Sorry Beryl, you are accepting Ancel Keys theory. He presented evidence to show that in seven countries the incidence of heart disease was related to the amount of fat consumed. However, he could and should have presented all the evidence that was known at the time since information was available from 22 countries. When all the countries are plotted on the graph there is simply no correlation between heart disease and fat consumption. This information was published by other researchers but to their amazement it was simply ignored. Keys shouted louder than others.

If you also consider that the country that eats the most saturated fat is France – it has the least incidence of heart disease. The country that eats the second largest amount of saturated fat is Switzerland and it reports the second smallest level of heart disease. Yet other countries eat much less saturated fat but suffer hugely from heart problems, for example, Belarus. The graph can be seen on many sites, including http://authoritynutrition.com/6-graphs-the-war-on-fat-was-a-mistake/.

This site also shows a graph linking obesity and the change in dietary recommendations in the 80s and how a low carb diet is the best diet to follow if you wish to lose weight.

I’ll just review one ironical aspect concerning the low fat myth. If I were to ask you which diet, high or low fat leads to the greatest amount of fat flowing through your arteries – I’m sure you would say – well it is obviously the high fat diet. Unfortunately, you would be wrong since the level of carbohydrate in your diet is directly related to the blood lipid (triglyceride or fat if you prefer) content. People following the low carb diet have about 1/3 of the circulating fat of people eating our current western high carb diet.

The reason is that glucose stimulates insulin release and this in turn tells the liver to convert excess glucose into fat – the more carb taken in, the more fat made. This fat cannot remain in the liver and is therefore dumped into the blood stream in the form of vLDLs. Since the insulin will have also diverted glucose into cells, they will have no use for the storage product (fat) and so it will circulate in the blood until directed, again by insulin, into the fat cells.

So because the western diet ensures that individuals are eating carb for breakfast, elevens, lunch, tea, and dinner, the liver becomes a factory for vLDLs and the blood and adipose tissue a repository for this fat.

So when you eat the western diet high carbohydrate, your blood lipid levels go up in relation to the amount of carb you eat.

In a similar manner, the more fat you eat is reflected in your level of HDL, the more you eat the higher the HDL level (perhaps I should have more accurately said the the more carbohydrate you eat the lower the level of HDL). This is more complex and assumes knowledge of relationships between the various lipid particles circulating in the blood, so I won’t go into the mechanism.

Since you brought up levels of cholesterol and heart disease, I’ll just make a few comments.

1. The reliance on a total cholesterol figure is obviously silly – since it is made up of “good” and “bad” cholesterol.

2. The level of LDL is poorly associated with heart disease.

3. The best indicators are HDL and fat (triglyceride levels) and their ratio. So when you have a high HDL and a low fat ratio, this is ideal and is achieved by the low carb/high fat diet.

I realise that we have been brain washed for the past half century into believing the opposite but if you read Nina Teicholz book (mentioned in the my first contribution) you may also have a eureka moment like Dr Richard Smith, ex editor of the BMJ. He blames people for not telling him – yet people have been trying to educate the medical profession but they will not uncover their ears.

If you can stand a little biochemistry there is also a new book by Dr Richard Feinman entitled “The World Turned Upside Down – The Second Low-carbohydrate Revolution.”

Charlie – My view is that we should not demonise any food unless there is good reason to do so. Official dietary advice should evolve to take account of the scientific evidence currently available. I am very much in favour of evolution than revolution dietary advice because of the possibility of confusion and distrust, encouraging the public to turn to crank diets published on the internet and in magazines.

Regarding fats, we cannot get away from the fact that they have a higher energy content. I have never regarded UK dietary advice as demonising fats. Maybe this is happening more nowadays with the current obsession with cholesterol and mass prescription of statins. For the reasons you give, I believe it would be good to move towards breakfast cereals that are based on grains other than wheat. In the supermarket the only readily available choices seem to be based on wheat and everything other than porridge oats contain sugar. I think I would rather take my chances eating muesli than have a full English breakfast, though it’s the carcinogens produced by high temperature cooking rather than the fat content that concerns me.

Historical data and current studies of diet in other countries may be of limited value because of variation in environmental factors, not least the pollutants in our food, our water and the air we breathe, physical activity, and so on. Having read some studies there seems to be some poor science going on. I am not suggesting that the information should be disregarded but there may be more room for caution in drawing conclusions.

I very much agree about routine testing of blood glucose and learning how we respond to diet. In view of the serious and unpleasant consequences of undiagnosed diabetes and the future cost of management, it seems short sighted not to screen for problems. I was pleased to be told that my GP practice had introduced HbA1c testing last year. I hope this is now standard.

Having had a look at current advice, I would agree that carbohydrates are promoted too strongly and would definitely like to see refined carbohydrates receiving a bit more adverse publicity.

Dr Charlie, I have written a conversation about diabetes and the importance of blood glucose testers that I was going to submit to Which? for their consideration.

I know several medicated diabetics who don’t test themselves and think medication is a passport to eating anything they like. Taking control of diabetes is something that is not encouraged nearly enough and good support and advice from the NHS seems to be lacking.

Years ago, an elderly relative was diagnosed with late-onset diabetes. He was overweight but not obese. The GP gave him the minimum dose of a drug without even trying diet control and prescribed urine test sticks. The results were always negative. It was at the time when the public could buy glucose test meters, though they were not available on prescription. He discussed this with the GP, who said blood testing was not necessary. I bought him a meter and test strips and he learned how his blood sugar responded to diet and exercise, keeping a meticulous record of his tests and noting any factor that might explain the occasional high or low reading. Eventually he was provided test strips by the diabetic clinic and then by his GP. For the rest of his life, his diabetes was very well controlled and to the best of my knowledge developed none of the well known complications.

Everyone should be aware that it is possible to reach the pre-diabetes stage or worse without being aware of the problem. Thankfully I don’t have a problem myself but it’s worth keeping an eye on.

Alfa, I hope Which takes note of your proposal since it seems a really good idea.

If people (non, pre- and diabetics) could be encouraged to monitor they would soon realize the importance of the various dietary constituents in relation to blood glucose concentrations.

Look forward to Which publishing a valuable contribution soon.

Wavechange – yes that is the problem with diabetes – it sneaks up on you.

Low blood sugar lets you know that there is a problem, you feel light-headed. Unfortunately, high blood sugar levels do not seem to give adequate warning. That is why I support Alfa and hope that Which will publish her comments.

In addition, I would hope Which would make it clear that non-diabetics would be wise to test themselves simply because by the time they do feel that something is wrong, it will not be the high glucose concentration that alerts them but more likely a problem with eyes, kidneys or vascular tissue.

I hope your relative appreciated your efforts.

Which? recently published a review of BP meters for home use. Perhaps the same could be done for blood glucose meters, with some basic advice and links to reliable advice for further reading.

I wish that our GPs would do routine basic health checks to cover this type of problem. Better to know sooner than (too) later and probably cheaper for the NHS as well.

Dr Charlie: Proponents of a one-sided viewpoint always set alarm bells ringing in my inner conscience, and whilst I respect your convincing eruditions in all things of a biological nature, I confess to feeling a little more comfortable with a broader perspective and would invite you to read up on the evidence relating to Low-Carbohydrate Diets for People with Type 2 Diabetes which can be found @diabetes.org.uk, and pertains to the bigger picture with particular reference to the following:

“5 year cohort evidence from people previously treated in the Diabetes Control and Complicated Trial show that lower carbohydrate and higher saturated, monounsaturated and total fat intake were associated with higher HbA1c levels.”

The jury is still out however on the safety of Dr Atkins high fat diet, very popular a few years ago until his death aged 71 from a head injury caused by a fall in icy conditions. However, historical medical evidence came to light about the condition of his heart and cardiovascular system which was attributed to a viral infection, but suspicions were raised when his wife refused to allow an autopsy at the time of his death. A more comprehensive viewpoint can be found @en.m.wikipedia.org – Robert Atkins (nutritionist.)

Notwithstanding genetic influences, the evidence shows people contract type 2 diabetes from consuming an unbalanced diet, i.e. excesses of one and not enough of another. Maybe the Japanese who, it is generally well known, live longer than any other culture, have got it right with their high intake of fish and rice, albeit white.

I think sugary drinks are certainly habit-forming if not actually addictive. It has been noted that many children are having one or two bottles of fizzy drinks a day as a routine. Cereal manufacturers have certainly made their products more-ish so that not only do people choose cereals with added sugar or chocolate but they put more in their bowls [and more milk to suit]. It is indicative of how the manufacturers regard the consumer’s critical faculties that on the various varieties of nutty flakes they say “contains fibre”. That’s all right then.

:wry-smile: Yep; really concerned about the consumers’ health.