Children’s serial with the highest sugar content revealed

Parents have been warned that the sugar content of “child-friendly” cereals is incredibly high.

The new report details the low nutritional value of almost all cereals that captivate children with bright colors and cartoons.

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About 92% of cereals sold to children still contain high or medium levels of sweets.

And more than half have at least moderate levels of salt.

Both numbers are higher than in 2020 (91% and 59%, respectively), but will improve in 2019.

Malt O Meal Marshmallow Mateys is the worst criminal, calling himself “a delicious and nutritious breakfast for the whole family.”

Each serving contains 12g of sugar. This is equivalent to eating 3 teaspoons of sugar or 5 and a half digestive biscuits.

It’s more than a Tesco jam donut covered with sugar (6.5g).

Cereals also contain the same amount of salt as a packet of potato chips (0.5g per serving).

Even more scary is that 100g contains more sugar than a can of cola. If your child is pouring their cereal, it is unlikely that they are using potion controls.

Children aged 7 to 10 should consume no more than 24 g of free sugar (six sugar cubes) daily. Many people can go far beyond their healthy limits..

Only 2 of the 126 cereals analyzed check all boxes for a healthy choice.

The data was collected by Action on Sugar and Action on Salt researchers based at Queen Mary University of London.

This was featured in The Food Foundation’s Broken Plate 2021 report, highlighting how progress in improving breakfast cereals has stagnated in recent years.

This year we saw only a slight improvement in overall sugar content, an average reduction of only 0.4g.

Researchers fear that parents may be fooled into buying serials that provide little nutritional value.

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Some retailers have promised to remove Cartoon characters from their package, But many still try to appeal to bright-colored children.

Breakfast cereals are often considered a healthy option when compared to croissants, pastries and bread.

Sonia Pombo, Campaign Manager for Action on Salt, explains:

“This can significantly contribute to increased blood pressure and an increased risk of developing obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.”

Katharine Jenner, campaign director for Action on Sugar and Action on Salt, has called on new health minister Sajid Javid to confront food companies.

She states: “Food companies are healthier as 10 out of 30 children graduate from primary school due to overweight or obesity and the total cost of obesity to a wider society is estimated at £ 27 billion. You should be forced to offer choices.

“Sure, does Mr. Havid believe that every child has the right to grow healthy?”

Worst criminal

To understand how high the sugar content of some children’s favorite cereals is, the sugar content of some other sweet foods is shown below.

• Plain McVitie Digestive Biscuit: 2.2g
• 1 typical croissant: 4g
• Jam donuts: 6.5g
• Schweppes Lemonade 250ml Glass: 11g
• Haribo Star Mix 25g: 13.75g

Three of Kellogg’s cereals contain more than 8g of sugar per serving (at least 2 teaspoons).

These are Frosties, Krave Chocolate Hazelnut and Krave Choco Roulette.

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Frosty has long been called the cartoon mascot Tony Tiger, Krave’s marketing included animated biscuits.

Lidl and Tesco’s unique chocolate pockets also contain approximately 8.5g of sugar per recommended serving.

Nature’s Paschoco Chimp, on the other hand, implies that its ingredients are natural and that a cheeky monkey invites children to try it out in the box.

However, like coco pops, cereals contain 9g of sugar per serving.

It’s not surprising to see some of the chocolate-centric cereals offer multiple spoons of sugar.

However, even those that are considered healthy, such as Nature’s Path Organic Gorilla Munch Corn Puffs Cereal, hide high sugar content (8g per serving).

Better choice

There were some cereals with low sugar scores, such as fruit bowl banana wheat biscuits and Aldi Harvest Morne Crisprice, with 2g and 1.5g of sugar per serving, respectively.

Morrisons and Tesco’s “Super Smooth Food Ridge” contains less than 0.5g of sugar per serving.

However, of the nearly 200 grains studied, only two were low-sugar, low-salt, and high-fiber grains.

These were Troo Calm Porridge + with chamomile and gentle ginger and Troo Happy Porridge with Flaxseed Omega3s and Uplifting Cinnamon.