Cereal offenders: why do sugar levels keep rising in our breakfast choices?
Despite the barrage of health warnings on the dangers of sugar, new breakfast products – such as drinks and biscuits – contain more of the white stuff than ever
The sugar on our collective breakfast tables is piling up at an alarming rate. Despite a barrage of health warnings on the white stuff, a report last month from Action on Sugar showed that one in five cereals now contains more sugar than three years ago, and some are 18% sweeter.
The Action on Sugar research is here (PDF). It looks at 49 breakfast cereals, of which 10 have a higher sugar content than they did in 2012. That's your "one in five cereals".
But it also found that 21 of the brands had a lower sugar content than it did in 2012. That's more than two in five. Levels were unchanged in the other 18.
Of the cereals that have the highest levels of sugar, more than half have less sugar in them than they did in 2012 while less than a quarter have more.
So the claim that "sugar levels keep rising" and that breakfast cereals contain "more of the white stuff than ever" doesn't really stack up, does it?
And if you don't want the ones that have more sugar, my advice is not to buy them.
15 comments:
How does Action on Sugar get involved with every single article in every newpaper? It seems to be a regurgitation of whatever Action on Sugars views are. Do they mailshot journalists hoping they will bite at whatever fearmongering headline they pitch?
Thank goodness my breakfast consists of coffee, (no sugar), and a vape, (used to be a cigarette or 3). lol no evil "white stuff" for me :)
I remember reading somewhere that you would get more actual nutrition from eating the box the cereal came in, than from the cereal itself. Better still, have a boiled egg, or some nasi-goring, or even some bacon and eggs for breakfast, rather than over processed cardboard crap.
In Australia we are already bombarded with propaganda against sugar, if you enjoy the odd soft drink, you apparently have a "sugary drinks habit", (when is the word "addict" going to used for anyone who enjoys a bit of sweetness?). I suspect they are softening up the public for a bit of demonising of chubby people, and some extortionist taxes.
This is the latest ad we are subjected to :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CETbVhjIJPI&list=PLZuJLOaj_w9a-vlWot9qweUSLtjO0uR48&index=1
Smokers will recognise these tactics instantly.
Notice the none too subtle red and white can, with the word Cola on it, guess who's next on the puritan hit list ???
And if you don't want the ones that have more sugar, my advice is not to buy them.
Ah, but that then gives the consumer a choice.
These people, like Tobacco Control, wish to remove those choices so that we are coerced into doing what they tell us to do. For our own good, of course.
I'd be interested to know where you read that eating cardboard contains more nutrition than breakfast cereal. Pica Weekly possibly, but I suspect they were having you on. If anyone tells you that food packaging contains more nutrients than the food within in future my suggestion is to take it with a pinch of salt.
The comment was "tongue in cheek" and not something I take or meant, seriously. Although I still think that cereal is something that should be eaten by horses, not humans.
Each to their own.
Spoil them and fatten them up before they go in value brand lasagne you mean? You continue to make tongue in cheek comments so it starts to look like you really mean it.
What are you on about? Who mentioned lasagne?
Would you tell someone with advanced dementia who only eats Ready Brek with lots of sugar on that they eat food only fit for horses? I hope not!
What??? Do you have advanced dementia ??? What are you going on about??? Weird!!
In europe there was a scandal: Some lasagne contained horse meat. People (including me ;)) still think of lasagne when horses are mentioned.
Glad to be vegetarian ... :D
Thank you for the explanation, I figured that is what Gru was referring to, but still don't see the relevance of mentioning horse meat in lasagne, or advanced dementia, when my comment was about cereals and sugar??
Horses that eat cereals, and don't have advanced dementia, may still end up in lasagne, depending on where they live, and somehow I should feel bad about this ?? LOL your guess is as good as mine.
Chris, good catch on the 20% vs 40%. The article was thus, basically, simply lying, just as I'd be lying if I said auto accidents at an intersection were rare (while keeping to myself that I'm defining rare as "less than one a day.")
The Foodies are just following the lessons learned from the Antis.
"Hey Norbert, want some Lasagne?"
"Neighhhh!"
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