Each week I spend about 30 minutes or more talking to patients about breakfast cereal…
And with good reason. Have you walked down the cereal aisle of your grocery store lately? There are literally hundreds of cereal options. So how do you know which are best?
When it comes to choosing cereal, there are three pieces of information to look for on a Nutrition Facts label.
- Servings size. This lets you know how much cereal you are working with.
- Fiber. Pretty essential. Good for the colon. Good for the heart. Good for helping you to feel full.
- Sugar. Keep an eye on the amount of added sugar in breakfast cereal because it is so easy to pack in several tablespoons of sugar in one bowl of cereal and not even realize it.
Nutrition Facts labels are full of so much information. Some of it is useful and some of it can be misleading. A good guideline for choosing cereal is to look for ones with four or more grams of fiber and eight or less grams of sugar per serving.
I made a list of 20 of the top breakfast cereal choices that I recommend to patients. These cereals fit the guidelines for sugar and fiber.
Guideline:
- Fiber = 4 or more grams per serving
- Sugar = 8 or less grams per serving
Cereals
- Alpen (No sugar added)
- Barbara’s Puffins Cereal
- Barbara’s Shredded Spoonfuls & Shredded Oats
- Barbara’s Ultima
- Bran Flakes
- Cascadian Farm Pomegranate Raspberry Clusters
- Dorset Cereal
- Fiber One Cereal Honey Clusters
- Fiber One Cereal Original
- Grape Nuts
- Kashi Go Lean
- Kashi Good Friends
- Kashi Heart to Heart
- Kashi Honey Sunrise
- Kashi Whole Grain Cereals
- Newman’s Own Sweet Enough Honey Flax Flakes Cereal
- Shredded Wheat or Wheat Chex
- Uncle Sam
- Weetabix
- Multi-grain Cheerios or plain Cheerios. In general, Cheerios is very low in sugar and has some fiber but less than 4 grams per serving. Although it does not fit the guideline exactly, I still think that it is a solid cereal choice.
Kashi Heart to Heart cereal with fresh raspberries
Uncle Sam cereal with dried cherries
Bran flakes with peaches
Shredded Wheat with fresh blackberries and honey
Multi-grain Cheerios with a banana
What kind of cereal do you like?
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thanks for the list – now I have some new ones to try. I’m a big fan of Puffins – tasty and healthy
I am a big fan of oats, but on days when oats are just not going to happen, I love Shredded wheat from Trader Joes, TJ’s High Fiber O’s and Grape Nuts…all mixed into my own little wonderful bowl of fiber!
I am also a Peanut Butter Puffins fan – love those straight out of a snack container that I pack for work!
I am a weetabix fan. And of Meusli. What do you think of Meusli? At least now I have more options based on your list
I have just found that cereal does not keep me full until lunch time! So sad since I used to really enjoy a good bowl of cereal!