Every box of cereal plays the same exact trick, whether it’s Froot Loops, Honey Nut Cherrios (which are both actually lower on the sugar end than a lot of cereal in the market believe it or not) or Mallow Oats Mom’s Best Cereal which is an organic choice that lots of moms are making so their kids are not getting dyes, artificial flavors and things like that. They all play this clever trick and that is to fool us by making their serving sizes ONE CUP. I don’t eat one cup of cereal, my 8 year old kid does not eat 1 cup of cereal. It’s more like 2 or 3 “servings” in our bowls.
There is 13 grams of sugar per SERVING of cereal, and I’m talking about LOWER SUGAR cereal variety. Multiply that by 2 because that’s (at least) what about people normally eat when they sit down to a bowl of breakfast cereal. Your typical box of cereal is going to contain about 5 ACTUAL servings if you eat the average serving size that most people (including kids) eat. Multiply 13 grams of sugar by the 5 servings that you are getting out of your average box and you get 65 grams in total! It’s ridiculous.
This is another trick that they play so that we’ll buy their junk. No wonder we’re getting fatter and sicker and more stressed out!
Personally, I rarely buy cereal and when I do, I buy one of the organic brands I trust but we consider it a treat. It’s better than candy but you still need to consider this as a healthy candy, not your lunch. 🙂 It’s dessert!
Don’t let this serving size trick fool you! Make sure you’re checking the serving sizes on any processed food you buy, because there’s a good chance they’re making them much smaller than the average person eats, because they don’t want you to be horrified by how many calories, sugar grams, etc., are in there. They’re hoping your eyes will go straight to calories, then sugar grams, and that you’ll forget to check the actual serving size and realize they’ve reduced it.
“Oh, you think I only eat one cup? Oh you’re so funny. I’m going to multiply everything by three because even my 5 year old is going to eat 2 or 3 cups of cereal for breakfast on a Sunday morning because we’re late for all the things because we slept in.”