Are Honey Nut Cheerios Healthy?
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Think of a "healthy" food. Now, imagine that is the only thing a person eats for years. Do you think this will make them healthy? Doubtful. We need a variety of foods for good health. Is a pure-sugar lollipop healthy? Most would agree that it isn't, but if you only ate one a couple times a year, I doubt there would be any ill-effects.
My point is slapping the term "healthy" or "unhealthy" on foods is meaningless without also including the concept of dosage and in relation to a healthy overall diet.
Anecdata, but Zooko (creator of ZCash, Tahoe-LAFS, and i2p contributor) has been eating nothing but meat for something like 6 years now and reportedly has incredibly good health as measured by standard and extended blood panels.
Of course he would have to forgo cooking or heart treatment for some parts to prevent nutrient loss.
What I found out was that the milk (even a small amount) was upsetting my digestive system. Cutting milk out of my morning breakfast/coffee really improved my morning responsiveness.
So it's not just the sugar and carbs for some of us.
See http://www.arnotts.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Nutriti... for an example - everything includes the "per 100g" no matter what the serving size. You can easily compare across food items without having to carry a calculator.
When I was a kid and ate cereal for breakfast, I'd be murderously hungry before 9am
A generation of Americans were sold a bill of goods on the food pyramid which subsidized big Ag, lead to an obesity epidemic and masked the effects of inflation.
By how much? And with or without exercise?
So my target was about 30 grams a day, which if you start reading labels is extremely difficult to pull off. I say its hard to pull off because almost everything in easily available food supply is full of carbs.
So my diet was pretty much restricted to meat, dairy, fruit and vegetables. If you go this route you'll quickly discover how much more expensive it is to eat healthy; which was the reason for my inflation comment.
Here's another fun fact. I have to get blood drawn every year to get a break on my company's health insurance. My doctor's jaw dropped when I went for my yearly physical. Not only did my weight drop, my cholesterol went down drastically.
My doctor asked me how I did it and I told him lots of bacon, eggs and cheese.
It wouldn't matter if I stop drinking Gatoraide and replaced it with rice or Wheaties.
Also, carbs and pure sugars are not really comparable. A lot of carb heavy cultures live very healthy lives.
or
carbs have an EFFECT on certain folks more adversely
This is not surprising due to the fact that eggs have been slandered by pseudoscientists for the past 50 years. The epidemiological data are easily explained by the healthy user bias, in reverse.
It explains how manufacturers make clever misdirections away from sugar such as adding verbiage about "fortified with 20 essential vitamins" on the box. It's insidious because the companies are preying on parents' intentions to feed their kids something nutritious when in fact, the very opposite happens. Excess sugar is causing obesity, early diabetes, and cavities.
A healthy alternative for breakfast is slow (not instant) cooked oatmeal with no sugar added. (If the kids absolutely have to have something sweet, cutting a few slices of fruit is better than dumping sugar into it.) I've been eating that every morning for decades with no weight gain.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Salt-Sugar-Fat-Giants-Hooked/dp/08129...
https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/your-food-is-fooling-you-how-y...
'Serving sizes are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, and can change if a cereal’s density changes. It appears that at some point in the last 10 or 15 years, General Mills tweaked the ingredients of Honey Nut Cheerios in a way that lowered the overall weight per serving, which had the effect of helping lower the stated sugar content.'
I wasn't aware that the FDA regulated serving sizes, or that they could change based on a recipe change. Will make me double check before and after stats on any product that claims "now X% less sugar/fat/etc".
Making a cereal that is superior to name brand products is stupidly easy.
I encourage you to try making your own mix. You save money and end up with a better product.
Just buy oats, then go to the bakery aisle and relax and buy whatever you see that you think you would enjoy: nuts, dried fruits, coconut, seeds, dark chocolate, sweeteners (w/e you want: sugar, m&m's, chocolate, vanilla, w/e).
Compare your mix with how much sugar+corn syrup+etc is in brand name cereals and you will be shocked.
Adjust as your taste desires. After a few weeks you will have a recipe you love.
I buy a big bag of frozen berries and toss a few in as well.
If you want to make a "soylent" product you can live on indefinitely, then just add milk, whey or soy(+B12) powders or liquids.
You can also eat this when you go hiking and camping.
Plus I get to tell myself I'm sticking it to the man... Or at least to stuffy office suits that build a product on dubious advertising claims.
I'd say more than half the time it's a serving size difference.
“You mentioned that three of the top six ingredients in Honey Nut Cheerios are sugar, brown sugar and honey,” Mike Siemienas, a spokesman for the company, wrote in a statement. “What you didn’t mention is that the number one ingredient is oats. To be so singularly focused on one ingredient — sugar — is irresponsible and doesn’t help consumers look at the total nutrition offered.”
This PR flack could work for the Government with indignation skills like this!