
Drop that spoon: The truth about breakfast cereals (2010) - 3stripe
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/nov/23/food-book-extract-felicity-lawrence
======
nlh
The single biggest improvement I made to my diet (and life, in general) was
giving up breakfast cereal. I used to eat a heaping bowl of the bad stuff
every. single. morning. growing up (bad stuff = Lucky Charms, Frosted Flakes,
Fruity Pebbles, etc.). I'd have it for dessert ("look mom, I'm not having ice
cream, I'm having cereal! it's healthy!").

Then as I got older, I thought I was making an improvement by "upgrading" to
something more wholesome -- like Frosted Mini Wheats ("It's shredded
wheat.......and SUGAR.")

I finally rebooted my eating when I started running about 4 years ago and
promptly lost 35+ lbs and actually became athletic for the first time in my
life. I traded in the cereal and started having greek yogurt for breakfast
(more recently I switched to having a _real_ breakfast in the morning -- eggs,
grapefruit and steel-cut oats and feel even better).

But the point is: We've been marketed-at to the point where we just think that
cereal is what you have for breakfast, and it feels great to wake up from that
trance.

~~~
megablast
Wow, people really think that breakfast cereal is healthy, especially the
sugary stuff you were eating? This might just be a US thing, because outside
US I don't think it is considered healthy at all. And it has been that way for
a long time.

Breakfast cereal is easy, and it has milk which is good for you, I thought
that is why it is popular.

~~~
_delirium
I think it's common in Europe for people to consider muesli healthy, even
though many of the common brands are not really that healthy either. Depends
on how much dried fruit and other such stuff you have in it (some varieties
also have sugar or honey added). But it's true that I don't think anybody
considers things closer to the Froot Loops end of the spectrum to be healthy.

~~~
NicoJuicy
Don't know about the rest of the world, but i consider muesli more healthy
then cereals, but i always watch the amount of sugar in it.

PS. I do believe Quaker Oats is a healthy breakfast, anyone has a opinion on
that? (it does'nt taste good though)

------
billmalarky
Unfortunately this is the truth about just about the entire western food
industry. I have a feeling the only thing that will stop the obesity epidemic
is heavy food regulation which people will fight tooth and nail against.
Without some sort of government intervention, it's just too difficult to make
healthy choices for most people to be successful. I feel like the food
industry is in an arms race as to who can make the most addictive product
possible.

The new Doritos Loaded product is a great example, it reminds me of a designer
drug. I'm sure it is absolutely delicious, crafted specifically to incite
pleasure in our brains, but processed to be faster to digest and give little
nutrition so as to not fill us up so we stop eating.

Edit: As another point, prepare a meal of healthy food and see how much harder
it is to overeat. Without the intensely pleasurable flavors that drive you to
eat "until you hate yourself" as Lous CK would say, I find I enjoy the flavor
until I am reasonably full and then don't want to pack anymore food down
because it just doesn't taste good enough too.

~~~
xcubed
I agree that it's hard to make healthy choices, but I think it's a bit more
complex than that...

I packed on an extra 20-30 pounds working in a catered, snack-heavy silicon
valley company. I decided to change my diet completely. I slowly cut out all
processed food from my diet, and then all snacks, so that everything that I
ate was homemade by myself, typically "healthy" (similar to mediterranean
diet), with no sugar, no juice, lots of vegetables and fish, some fruit, and
relatively portion-controlled (eyeballed.) I lost 8 pounds but then plateau-ed
- I continued to be overweight. I also exercised 4 times a week.

I started monitoring calories for a couple months and realized I was eating at
a slight "calorie deficit" \- I should have been losing a pound every week or
two but I wasn't. Only when I cut my calories and STRICTLY portion-controlled
my healthy food (to a calorie deficit where I should have been losing 2-3
pounds a week), did I finally start losing 2/3 pound a week. I'm proud to say
I'm now a healthy weight but I eat FAR less and exercise FAR more than I
should "need" to.

The journey really helped me realize there's something wrong with our food
(not just the processed food but the ingredients themselves) and that there
are some environmental factors involved (something in the water? the
environment? pesticides? I really don't know. I'm not sure what it is.)

~~~
oblio
American food is crap. I don't know what they add in the US, but a lot of
stuff seems artificial. Even the milk seems over-processed. Source: European
who had 2 trips to the US, in supposedly healthy states: California,
Washington.

~~~
pm90
I feel more like American milk is extremely homogenized, so all milk tastes
exactly the same. However, I really enjoy the taste of it, so I haven't had
any problem so far.

In contrast, Indian milk tastes different when you buy from different vendors.
You also have a choice between cow and buffalo milk.

~~~
oblio
Have you ever tasted natural milk? Non pasteurized? I mean either completely
raw or just boiled once straight after it's been collected? I have. The taste
of European milk is similar. That of American milk is almost nothing like real
cow milk.

------
whistlerbrk
Bottom line.. we're killing ourselves with overloading our bodies with
carbohydrates. Nearly every bit of nutritional advice handed out by the
government since the 70s is a pack of lies made in concert with the subsidized
corn and wheat industries.

These industries sell you poison, then the pills that slow down how fast the
poison kills you and tell you it's okay to keep eating it. Then the
prescribing doctor gets kick backs.

Diabetics take note. How does continuing to eat the thing that got you there
to begin with make any sense? Complete and utter lifestyle change.

Eat as many eggs as you want. Ignore EVERYTHING a doctor tells you about
cholesterol. Eat a ton of vegetables and as much grass fed meat and butter as
you can afford.

(note: 'poison' is a bit of hyperbole)

~~~
omegaworks
Your advice is incredibly dangerous and somewhat counterintuitive. Do not
ignore everything a doctor tells you. Do your own research and understand that
nutrition science is still in its infancy.

>Ignore EVERYTHING a doctor tells you about cholesterol.

Except for triglycerides. Triglycerides are extremely dangerous and strongly
correlated to arteriosclerosis. There's evidence that triglycerides are formed
in the liver when it's forced to process fructose.[1] They're also implicated
in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.[2]

Don't ignore your doctor telling you about bad numbers, but take his/her
advice as to what to do about it with a few grains of salt. Dietary
cholesterol intake has little to do with the cholesterol in your blood. [3]

>Diabetics take note.

I agree with your basic premise that reducing carbohydrate intake can help
with various metabolic diseases, but people with Diabetes need to be EXTREMELY
careful. Often they've been on pills and injected insulin for such a long time
that their body has adjusted and simply stopping the treatment could actually
kill them. These individuals have an extremely dysfunctional carbohydrate
metabolism and the transition to a low-carbohydrate metabolism is often
accompanied by fatigue often called Keto Flu. [4] This kind of benign fatigue
mimics dangerous hyper and hypoglycemic events that can require medical
attention.

Diabetes can be treated by a low-carbohydrate diet, but the transition off
medication needs to be supervised by a medical professional familiar with the
practice.

1\.
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3513615](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3513615)
2\.
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18460922](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18460922)
3\. [http://www.scribd.com/doc/101760834/Low-Carb-
Research](http://www.scribd.com/doc/101760834/Low-Carb-Research) 4\.
[http://elowcarbfoodlist.org/the-keto-flu-symptoms-and-
relief...](http://elowcarbfoodlist.org/the-keto-flu-symptoms-and-relief/)

~~~
jwdunne
Re. Diabetes, I think in some cases restricting carbs can be fatal as
diabetics can suffer from ketoacidosis, where the blood turns acidic due to an
uncontrollable amount of ketones present.

Also, if blood sugar drops too low, hypoglycaemia is a very real and
potentially fatal threat.

In this case, a keto diet high in fat may not be ideal - an emphasis on low-GI
carbs wound be safer. Perhaps it may be possible to ease into a keto diet
slowly but the amount of time and monitoring may be a bit much to bare.

To prevent diabetes, keto all the way but it's a little bit tricky if you're
already there and have been for some time.

~~~
morganherlocker
> Diabetes, I think in some cases restricting carbs can be fatal as diabetics
> can suffer from ketoacidosis, where the blood turns acidic due to an
> uncontrollable amount of ketones present.

Ketoacidosis is extremely dangerous for diabetics, but it occurs in cases of
extreme high blood sugar, not low blood sugar. These ketones can lead to
serious kidney damage, or even kidney failure. Your point about hypoglycemia
is dead on though.

As a type I diabetic myself, carbs are actually life saving during a low blood
sugar episode (and low blood sugars actually occur more often for type I
diabetics with tight control). As an aside, I find it perpetually frustrating
how keto-fans like the OP conflate type I and type II diabetes as if there is
no difference (because the answer to everything is "keto" \s).

~~~
jwdunne
Oh thanks for clarifying that. It's about lack of insulin, not too low blood
sugar, in which case the blood sugar levels will be high, because the body has
no insulin to use glucose as fuel. This is what causes the build up dangerous
levels of ketones. I understand now.

------
smegel
That's why I eat oats. Not porridge, just plain rolled oats with cold milk and
bluberries.

~~~
nly
Eh? In the UK porridge is just oats + (hot) milk. How is that significantly
different?

~~~
thomasahle
Porridge is actually described in the article as the good old british cereal.
(Search the article for 'oat'). Though, porridge oats are usually smaller and
more processed than oats for eating cold.

------
Stratoscope
Try this: Go to your favorite grocery store and look for Kashi 7 Whole Grain
Puffs, what we used to call Puffed Kashi.

This is the original product from the Kashi company: Whole hard red wheat,
whole brown rice, whole oats, whole barley, whole triticale, whole rye, whole
buckwheat, sesame seeds, and nothing else. Puffed, but just barely puffed so
it's still chewy and crunchy. Great stuff.

So try to find it. Your grocer will probably have over a dozen varieties of
Kashi cereals, every one of them sugared up concoctions. But they are very
unlikely to have the original Puffed Kashi, the real thing.

Trader Joe's used to have it. Whole Foods used to have it. Safeway used to
have it. Now they all just have Kashi's sugared products.

But lucky me, I found one place that still has the real Puffed Kashi: Amazon!

------
VLM
You feed mammals grains and processed grains if you want to fatten them up as
fast as possible for the slaughter while they're in the feedlot, if you don't
care how long they live, cause a couple years is long enough.

Or according to TV commercials you feed grains to little mammals of your
species because you love them and they're cute. Even though it'll fatten them
up and kill em.

You can try and deny what biological commonalities exist for whatever reasons,
but the weight scale knows better.

Feeding people the same stuff that farmers use to fatten their herds will
inevitably make people look like people of walmart website. No avoiding it.

------
mark_l_watson
My wife and I gave up eating breakfast cereal years ago because we did not
feel as good in the morning compared to eating fruit, eggs, perhaps a veggie
omelette, etc.

Everyone is different so if I may suggest: try doing some A/B testing: go a
month eating cereal and then go a month not eating cereal and see how
differntly you feel. For all I know, some people may thrive on cereal, but not
my wife and I.

------
casca
For more detail, the woman who wrote The Guardian piece has a book that goes
into more detail - Not on the Label: [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Not-On-Label-
Really-Plate/dp/0141015...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Not-On-Label-Really-
Plate/dp/0141015667/)

------
mingabunga
Speaking of cat food, 1/3 of pet foods contain brewers rice which has little
or no nutritional value
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewers_rice](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewers_rice)
For cats being completely carnivorous, I can't imagine carbs are doing them
any favors.

------
guscost
Do they still have a shot in cereal commercials where the announcer says "part
of this complete breakfast" while the screen flashes a place setting with a
small bowl of cereal, eggs, toast, half a grapefruit, orange juice, and milk?

I remember thinking that breakfast would be just as "complete" if you left out
the cereal.

------
nn3
I used to live near a Kellog's factory. It was a really scary looking gigantic
building, looking like a big machine from hell with steam pouring out of it.
It was a really scary thought to imagine how they make cornflakes there.

I never was much into prepackaged cereals, but that totally put me off.

------
MisterBastahrd
Milk is sugar water and fat. Breakfast cereals are mostly sugars and starches
with a bit of fiber. Add them together and you have a recipe for crashing
halfway between breakfast and lunch.

------
grannyg00se
Do we really need yet another essay on the perils of processed foods?

Just look at the ingredients on most breakfast cereals and you'll see sugar or
some kind of sugar substitute as the second or third ingredient. Eat real food
if you're at all interested in your health.

~~~
jp555
Sugar is a real food. Rice is >70% sugar and so are most potatoes.

Why fear 50g of cereal when you eat it with 200+g of milk, which is about the
most perfect food available?

Sugar is the preferred energy of almost every cell in our bodies; and in the
end, protein & fat will be converted into glucose if no sugar (glycogen) is
available.

~~~
NicoJuicy
I don't think rice contains much sugar..
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=rice+sugar](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=rice+sugar)

And sugar is "easy energy" and will make you fat. There are better sugar types
(such as fructose (sugar from fruit) and Dextrose (found in the pharmacy))

~~~
jp555
Here we see 163 grams of dry white rice contains 123 grams of sugar ->
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+cup+raw+rice](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+cup+raw+rice)

All non-fibre carbohydrates are metabolized as sugar, and it's VERY rare for
our bodies to convert carbs into fat. All complex sugars are broken down into
monosaccharides before absorption. Chew on a piece of bread for a couple
minutes and enzymes in your saliva will break it down into glucose, and it
will become sweet in your mouth.

Dextrose is glucose, and sugar does not directly make you fat. Eating a
sustained caloric surplus makes you fat, no matter the macronutrient
composition of your diet.

Here's more detail about the biochemistry of how we get fat -
[http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/how-we-get-
fat.htm...](http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/how-we-get-fat.html)

~~~
will_work4tears
>and it's VERY rare for our bodies to convert carbs into fat

Not THAT rare. Add alcohol, or just eat a whole lot of carbs and few fats[0].

[0]-[http://examine.com/faq/how-are-carbohydrates-converted-
into-...](http://examine.com/faq/how-are-carbohydrates-converted-into-fat-
deposits.html)

~~~
jp555
Even with alcohol, it's the indirect mechanism of storing consumed fat when
consuming ethanol-energy rather than turning the ethanol into fat. Ethanol is
a VERY poor fat precursor. Converting ethanol to lipids is an extremely
inefficient process; when it happens only a few % of ethanol-calories end up
being converted into fat-calories.

Through a similar mechanism to alcohol, one can start up DNL much faster with
large acute fructose consumption, but even in that "worst case scenario" we
still only convert about 1% of surplus fructose into fat -
[http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/9/1/89](http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/9/1/89)

Somewhat ironically, a scenario where we make more fat from the carbs &
protein we eat is when we consume very little fat. Eat less than 10% fat in
your diet and this will cause DNL to ramp up. This is explained more in the
"how we get fat" link in my previous comment.

~~~
will_work4tears
Oops, sorry, I didn't state my case properly, I wasn't suggesting alcohol is
converted into fat (which I've been taught is exactly zero- the body treats it
as a toxin and it gains priority on using it - but I guess a small percent or
fraction of a percent is small enough that zero is an approximation), but that
glucose can be stored as fat in the presence of alcohol. Drink a beer and eat
some bread and it's likely some or most of those calories will be stored as
fat. Even the carbohydrates. Also carbohydrates in the beer (though not the
alcohol).

Your last point was the main gist of my post, though I didn't spell it out so
well. I didn't realize that about fructose though.

------
sosuke
About cereal boxes containing more nutrition than the cereal inside
[http://mythbustersresults.com/episode55](http://mythbustersresults.com/episode55)

~~~
infra178
"MythBusters" is an unscientific television show run by stunt men. Imagine
someone holding a candle underneath a gas tank for five seconds, not
exploding, and concluding with cheesy sound effects that the flammability of
gasoline is a "Myth". That's "MythBusters".

~~~
Karunamon
XKCD responds to this better than I can:
[http://xkcd.com/397/](http://xkcd.com/397/)

That aside, I've yet to see a conclusion on that show that wasn't reasonable.

~~~
dllthomas
_" That aside, I've yet to see a conclusion on that show that wasn't
reasonable."_

Whenever the myth is about a secret project to such-and-such, they regularly
use "we couldn't figure out how to do it" to conclude "it can't be done"; that
isn't reasonable.

I'm generally a fan of the show, mind you.

