Yesterday we wrote about false advertising claims by Kellogg’s with respect to its Frosted Mini Wheats cereal. Today we’ll take a look inside the box to see just how nutritious this product really is…

What you need to know:

Here is the ingredient list:

Whole Grain Wheat, Sugar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Gelatin. Vitamins and Minerals: Reduced Iron, Niacinamide, Zinc Oxide, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Thiamin Hydrochloride (Vitamin B1), Folic Acid and Vitamin B12. To Maintain Quality, BHT Has Been Added to the Packaging.

Whole Grain Wheat – that’s always good. Whole wheat grains contain healthy fiber.
Sugar – Gotta have some sugar, right? This is a kids cereal after all.
High Fructose Corn Syrup - didn’t we just list sugar? what’s the deal Kellogg’s? Why add HFCS as well?
Gelatin – this is interesting. Why would Kellogg’s need to ad gelatin, an animal derived thickening agent into cereal? Turns out many products include gelatin, and this is a particular pain in the neck for vegetarians and vegans, as well as people observing kosher laws. In Kellogg’s unsweetened version of this cereal, there is no gelatin.
Vitamins and Minerals - Adding vitamins to foods that don’t naturally contain them can sometimes be beneficial and sometimes be exaggerated. It is always better to get your vitamins and minerals from a real food (fruit, vegetable, milk, and meat products) than from a process because the bioavailability of these nutrients is often higher. They also contain a multitude of other good nutrients such as flavonoids and other antioxidants that science has yet to properly research.
BHT (E321) – Butylated hydroxytoluene is a food additive used to prevent foods from going rancid. There is some debate over the safety of this product, as some studies have shown it to cause tumors, and others have shown it to reduce the risk of cancer. BHT may be found in the food itself or in the packaging.

Happily there are no other preservatives or food colorings in this product.

Nutririton info – A serving size is 24 biscuits (go ahead and count them before you start eating). That’s about 2.1 oz, or 59 grams per serving. Many other cereals of the puffed kind have a serving size of just 1 oz, but this is a denser product.

The calorie count is 200, relatively high for a serving of cereal. A half a cup of skim milk adds just 40 calories.

The 2 top ingredients are sugary, so it’s no surprise that each serving has 12 grams, or 2.5 teaspoons of sugar. Not good, but unfortunately most children’s cereals are in this range and even worse. The fiber content is very high at 6 grams, which is almost 25% of the recommended daily intake.

Our conclusion – you could do worse with children’s cereal. Fiber value is very good. The sugar content is a bit high. If only they’d replace BHT with some other means of preserving freshness.

What to do at the supermarket:

As always, scan the ingredient list and nutrition panel. In children’s cereals it is especially important to look for a low sugar content (less than 10 grams per serving), no artificial food colorings, and high fiber content.

We’d recommend looking at the unsweetened version of this cereal, and adding brown sugar or honey with the milk.

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