Honey Nut Cheerios - The Hole Nutty Truth
With 42% of adults classed as obese, 13% suffering from Type II diabetes and estimates suggesting a further 38% being pre-diabetic it seems odd that Americans still choose to spend nearly half a billion dollars a year on Honey Nut Cheerios.
Diabetes is a disease of glucose regulation so it doesn’t seem that much of a stretch to conclude that the overconsumption of sugar might play quite a big role here.
A study out of Stanford in 2018 highlighted some interesting results. It was one of the earliest studies to use continuous glucose monitors which it attached to its 57 participants. The participants were then given standardised meals and the results were plotted.
While the type of food ingested was the overriding predictor of blood sugar levels, the results indicated huge variabilities in glucose responses not just between individuals but among individuals too. This is interesting as it suggests there may be many factors that determine the body’s metabolic responses and more generally, it highlights the potential complexity of the process.
Having said that, some standardised meals consistently resulted in elevated glucose in the vast majority of participants.
“Cornflakes and milk caused glucose elevation in the pre-diabetic range in 80% of individuals in our study. It is plausible that these commonly eaten foods might be adverse for the health of the majority of adults in the world population.”
Source: med.stanford.eu
This is shocking but Cornflakes don’t feature in the top 5 cereals consumed in the US (2019 figures) so just take a look at what does:
Honey Nut Cheerios: 2019 Sales: $481.10m
Frosted Flakes: 2019 Sales: $424.85m
Cinnamon Toast Crunch: 2019 Sales: $400.95m
Lucky Charms: 2019 Sales: $310.42m
Froot Loops: 2019 Sales: $270.41m
Source: www.statista.com
That is nearly $1.9bn spent on these 5 cereal brands alone but here’s the rub — check out their sugar content per 100g compared to the Cornflakes used in the study:
Cornflakes: 9.6g
Honey Nut Cheerios: 32.4g +240%
Frosted Flakes: 35.9g +274%
Cinnamon Toast Crunch: 29g +202%
Lucky Charms: 33.3g +247%
Froot Loops: 30.8g +221%
Source: Carb Manager App
If Cornflakes led to pre-diabetic spikes in individuals with normal glucose metabolisms one can only imagine what a big bowl of Frosted Flakes might do to someone that is pre-diabetic — presumably, send blood sugar levels into the stratosphere.
What makes these foods even more damaging is the time of day we choose to eat them. At breakfast, our stomachs are at their emptiest so any nutrients that land there will be absorbed more quickly. This means any foods that might cause a spike will be even spikier at breakfast and it’s hard to imagine anything spikier than refined starch coated with sugar on an empty stomach.
The other obvious issue with breakfast cereal is that it is eaten so regularly — daily in fact! While people vary their lunches and dinners they tend to consume the same breakfast nearly every day, so in the cereal-eaters of the world, the pancreas gets no respite.
In simple terms, the glucose spikes lead to surges of insulin with subsequent dips in blood sugar leading to hunger cravings. These cravings often mean the consumption of another sugary snack and so the cycle continues. The repeatedly high glucose and insulin levels cause weight gain and insulin sensitivity. As the pancreas then begins to struggle with wave after wave of glucose, pre-diabetes and diabetes result.
The breakfast cereal market in the US in 2022 is estimated to be worth $22bn (source: statista.com.) and some drug companies are making similar amounts on their sales of diabetic medications. While these powerful entities are making so much money there appears to be very little political will to tackle the sale of these harmful foods.
In addition, it is a very difficult environment for the consumer to make healthy choices. The government and the media send out confusing messages about “healthy grains” and the amount of carbohydrates that we need to eat while the food industry piles money into huge and often misleading advertising campaigns.
Take Honey Nut Cheerios:
Ingredients: Whole Grain Oats, Sugar, Oat Bran, Corn Starch, Honey, Brown Sugar Syrup, Salt, Tripotassium Phosphate, Rice Bran Oil and/or Canola Oil, Natural Almond Flavor, Vitamin E. (Source: cheerios.com)
Marketed as:
Contains Real Honey: You will get absolutely no dietary benefit from the honey in this cereal and it will be metabolised in exactly the same way as table sugar.
Contains Nuts: This cereal contains a “natural almond flavour” — I don’t think that’s quite the same thing.
Low Fat: Yes — it’s true! But extremely high in sugar which I don’t see mentioned on the packaging. If there was some fat in this cereal it might actually help slow down the metabolism of all the carbohydrates.
Healthy Whole Grains: This is largely irrelevant as grains are grains. You might get a little bit of extra fibre (it contains 2% total fibre) but ultimately all grains are carbohydrates and, as such, all are metabolised into glucose if marginally slower than the 12g of sugar they are competing with here.
Helps reduce risk of heart disease: Are you actually kidding me? These foods are a direct cause of obesity with all its associated risks. Sugar is now seen as a greater cause of heart disease than saturated fat but governments are too scared of the big food companies to actually come out and admit that the nutritional guidelines that they have been dishing out for the last 50 years have deprived millions of people their quality of life.
Reduces cholesterol as part of a heart-healthy diet: Right, that’s enough.
It is a scandal how companies get away with marketing these foods.
Medical costs in the US attributed to obesity reached $175bn in 2019 and only look set to increase (source: cdc.gov) as yet another generation is brought up consuming this garbage.The food and pharmaceutical industries look set to continue making huge profits while consumers gets sicker and governments turn a blind eye.
It is so frustrating as even a simple shift to a savoury breakfast could lead to a huge improvement in a person’s health.
