Kid’s Cereals are packed with Sugar!!

Of the list of 21 cereals taken from the foodessentials database and compared by sugar content, it was astonishing to find the level of sugar contained in most of the products.  At the high end of the scale there are products with sugar levels of close to 50 grams per 100 grams and over.  Whilst the lower end of the scale (dominated again by Annie’s Cereals – see previous article about cereals and colors) shows values more reasonable at around 6 – 20 grams per 100 grams.

This means that in one 100 gram  serving of these high sugar cereals you’d be eating about 50 grams of sugar (50%).  Now one could argue that 100 grams is a lot of cereal for one person, and to be fair this is true.  The average serving size as described by the analyzed products is about 30 grams.  This still means you’d be eating something that was 50% sugar.

The apparent guidelines on the recommended daily amount (RDA) of sugar per day is 40g per 2000 calorie diet – this is unsubstantiated and there is some evidence that points to the fact that there is no official USDA RDA for sugar.   However, on the other side of the coin some organizations recommend a DV of Zero grams of added sugar.    It is most likely that there are no official USDA RDA’s set for sugar but that instead a USDA guideline is for 8% of our daily calories – which for a 2000 calorie diet is aproximately 40 grams of sugar.

If this is close to correct then you can see that one (very small – 30g) serving of  children’s cereal with 50% sugar (50+ grams per 100 grams) would be about 38% of your daily limit of sugar (15 grams).  This is quite considerable.  In the least it should be important for parents to check the sugar levels on the cereal they feed their children.  The following table should help.

Kids Cereals	size	Sugar (per 100g)
Annie’s Cereal – Bunny Love	9 oz	6.67g
Annie’s Cereal – Honey Bunnies	9 oz	21.88g
Annie’s Cereal – Cinna Bunnies	9 oz	21.88g
Annie’s Cereal – Bunny Crunch Honey	9 oz	22.86g
Annie’s Cereal – Cocoa & Vanilla Bunnies	9 oz	26.67g
Annie’s Cereal – Fruity Bunnies	9 oz	30.00g
Post Cereal – Fruity Pebbles	17 oz	36.67g
Malt-O-Meal Cereal – Dyno-Bites Fruity	42 oz	40.74g
Malt-O-Meal Cereal – Marshmallow Mateys	38 oz	43.33g
Malt-O-Meal Cereal – Dyno-Bites Cocoa	42 oz	44.83g
Kellogg’s Cocoa Rice Krispies Cereal – Cocoa Krispies	17.5 oz	45.16g
Malt-O-Meal Cereal – Tootie Fruities	30 oz	46.88g
Kellogg’s Apple Jacks Cereal	19.1 oz	48.48g
Malt-O-Meal Cereal – Apple Zings	36 oz	48.48g
Malt-O-Meal Cereal – Coco Roos	27.5 oz	50.00g
Kellogg’s Honey Smacks Cereal	13.1 oz	55.56g
Post Cereal – Cocoa Pebbles Family Size	17 oz	n/a
Post Cereal – Pebbles Dino S’mores	11.5 oz	n/a
Kellogg’s Froot Loops Cereal	19.7 oz	n/a
Post Cereal – Alpha-Bits	14.1 oz	n/a
Post Cereal – Bamm-Bamm Berry Pebbles	13 oz	n/a

Taken from a sample of 12 kids cereals as found in on foodessentials.com © foodessentials.com. This list may be reproduced with reference to www.foodessentials.com

The values in the table above show the sugar content for a variety of childrens cereals per 100 g (it is important to note that we’re comparing products by per 100g and not by serving size as different products have different serving sizes).  The datbase is not yet fully comprehensive but it is continually growing and getting increasingly more accurate.

To find Low Sugar in Kids Cereal in the widget:

Snacks, Cookies, & Candy > Cereal > Cereal Kids

Compare by: Sugar Sort: lo-hi

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