Americans consume an average of 160 bowls of cereal each year, one of the most popular breakfasts around. Especially for kids, cereal is quick and easy, and can be had in any way. With or without milk, in a bowl for breakfast or as a snack, lunch or dinner. The popularity of cereal for kids and cost effectiveness for parents makes it an easy sale for the larger companies. It has become a relatively well-known fact that boxed cereal is not the healthiest way to start your morning, to say the least. The preservatives, artificial colors, flavors and gluten content included in most brands leave them lacking the nutritional punch and energy boost that they advertise.

1. Worst BoxED CErEals: Don’t
Start Your Day with These
Americans consume an average of 160 bowls of cereal each
year, one of the most popular breakfasts around. Especially for
kids, cereal is quick and easy, and can be had in any way. With or
without milk, in a bowl for breakfast or as a snack, lunch or dinner.
The popularity of cereal for kids and cost effectiveness for parents
makes it an easy sale for the larger companies.It has become a
relatively well-known fact that boxed cereal is not the healthiest

2. way to start your morning, to say the least. The preservatives,
artificial colors, flavors and gluten content included in most brands
leave them lacking the nutritional punch and energy boost that
they advertise.
However, some boxed cereals are simply terrible, and what
makes them even worse is the fact that they are precisely the
types being marketed directly to our children.
The cereals marketed to kids have approximately 85 percent
more sugar, 65 percent less fiber, and 60 percent more sodium
than those marketed to adults. This is especially frightening since
the average preschooler views about 642 ads per year on
television, according to recent statistics. Would you eat a Hostess
Twinkie for breakfast? How about feeding your children three
Chips Ahoy! Cookies for their first meal of the day? Environmental
Working Group (EWG) reviewed 84 popular brands of children’s
breakfast cereal and found that the most dastardly of the bunch
packs more sugar than a Twinkie, while the rest of the wretches
have more sugar than three chocolate chip cookies. Sweet mercy,
is it any wonder that childhood obesity has reached epidemic
proportions?

3. EWG explains that Congress formed the federal Interagency
Working Group on Food Marketed to Children to propose
standards to Congress to curb marketing of kids’ foods with too
much sugar, salt and fat; yet only one in four children’s cereals
meets the government panel’s voluntary proposed guidelines,
which recommend no more than 26 percent added sugar by
weight. Translated, that means three out of four children’s cereals
are more than 1/4 sugar by weight, with the worst cereals
exceeding 1/2 of their weight in sugar. Imagine eating one cup of
plain oatmeal, and a half a cup of sugar on the side. It’s so
outrageous.
The following are 5 of the worst boxed cereals for overall health:

4. Honey Smacks:
This sickeningly-sweet concoction leads the EWG’s list of
‘10 worst children€™s cereals, a€™ based on sugar content
alone. This cereal is comprised of a whopping 56 percent sugar
by weight.
This means that one cup of Smacks actually has more sugar than
a Twinkie. On this statistic, Dr. Andrew Weil, a health expert,
comments, “the fact that a children’s breakfast cereal is 56
percent sugar by weight – and many others are not far behind –
should cause national outrage.”

5. Honey Smacks also contain trans fats, in the form of
‘hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated soybean oil.’ This
is listed in the ingredients, but not calculated into the fat
percentage on the nutrition label.
A few years ago, the FDA decided that trans fat content only
needs to be listed if the food contains 0.5 grams or more per
serving. If trans fats are included, but in less than this
concentration, it can be listed as zero percent. This is absolutely
egregious, because as we all know, servings add up.
Another ingredient featured in Honey Smacks is BHT, or butylated
hydroxytoluene. Used as a preservative, BHT is also used in jet
fuel, petroleum products, rubber and embalming fluid. It also
shares chemical properties with toluene, a highly toxic solvent
that has been linked to neurological problems when inhaled.
If this weren’t enough, Honey Smacks have less than one
gram of fiber.

6. Froot Loops:
The very first ingredient on the nutrition label on a box of Froot
Loops is sugar. In fact, this cereal weighs in at 41.4 percent sugar
by weight. Froot Loops also contains trans fat and BHT. It does
has several ‘natural fruit flavors,’ but there is absolutely no
real fruit.

7. Froot Loops is, in fact, a rainbow of artificial colorings; red 40,
blue 1 and 2, and yellow 6, to be specific. Artificial colorings have
been linked to hyperactivity in children by multiple studies, and
are potential triggers of mild to severe allergic reactions,
especially in those sensitive to aspirin.
Additionally, blue 2 has been linked to cancer in lab rats in some
experiments, and red 40 is under investigation by some
researchers as a possible carcinogen. Yellow 6 has been lined by
some studies to cancer of the adrenals and kidneys, and also to
digestive issues.
One other potentially harmful – and untested – component of
Froot Loops: GMO corn. As 85 percent of the corn and soy grown
in the United States today is genetically modified, products
containing non-organic corn are very often made of GMO
varieties

8. Apple Jacks:
Sugar, not apples, is the first ingredient in Apple Jacks, followed
by corn flour (most probably GMO), wheat flour (possibly GMO),
oat flour, more sugar in the form of high fructose corn syrup, and
then salt.
While apple juice and dried apples ARE included, the pesticides
that non-organic apples introduce in the mix could outweigh the
health benefits of the fruit. Apple Jacks contains 42.9 percent
sugar by weight, less than one gram of fiber, and nearly 130
grams of sodium per serving. Apple Jacks also contain BHT, blue
1, and red 40.

9. Golden Crisps:
Coming in at second place on the EWG’s ‘10 worst
children’s cereals list, a€™ Golden Crisp is 51.9 percent
sugar by weight. It also contains Trans fat, caramel color and
almost no fiber.

10. Rice Krispies:
Rice Krispies made the list because they are often seen by
parents as a ‘healthier’ option for their children due to the
significantly lower sugar content. While it is true that Rice Krispies
won’t spike blood sugar like many other children’s
cereals will, it is anything but healthy. It contains trans fats, BHT,
soy ingredients, possible GMO grains, and absolutely no fiber.
New York University (NYU) nutrition professor Marion Nestle
summarizes the problem with so many of today’s boxed
breakfast cereals: “cereal companies have spent fortunes on

11. convincing parents that a kid’s breakfast means cereal, and that
sugary cereals are fun, benign, and all kids will eat… No public
health agency has anywhere near the education budget
equivalent to that spent on a single cereal. Kids should not be
eating sugar for breakfast. They should be eating real food.”