How to Rate Your
Breakfast Cereal
As you can see from our tables, the
breakfast cereals containing the most
sugar contain the equivalent of an
incredible 5 cubes of sugar.
If you swapped from the cereal with
the highest sugar content to the cereal with the lowest sugar content, over
the course of a year you would save
an unbelievable 1664 cubes in your
diet. That is 6.5 KG, or 6 1/2 bags of
sugar. Now that’s food for thought.
Although our tables show a selection
of breakfast cereals, there are still
many that we have not included. You
can rate these cereals yourself by
looking at the nutrient label on the
box. Find out how much sugar is in
100g and then work out if it is healthy
or not by using the following grid:
Sugar in 100g
Rated
5g or less
Green
6g - 20g
Yellow
20g +
Red
Useful Contact Numbers
Paediatric Diabetes Specialist
Nurses
Office: 01254 732 558
Carol Wade
Mobile: 07866 441 041
Peter Doyle
Mobile: 07740 803 786
How Much
Sugar is in Your
Breakfast Cereal
?
Vicky Phillips
Mobile: 07973 315 298
Clair Kneale
Mobile: 07713 089 470
Mary Nightingale
Mobile: 07943 580 088
Karen Smith
Mobile: 07943 579 965
Paediatric Diabetes Dietitians
Julie Wood
Alison Ashworth
Office: 01254 732 463
Authors: Dietetics
Issue Date: April 2015
Document ID:
Version: 1
Review Date: April 2018
East Lancashire
Children and
Young Peoples
Diabetes Team
Breakfast cereal is generally thought of
as being a healthy way to start the day.
However, you may be surprised at how
much sugar many of them contain.
Sugar raises blood glucose fast and so
can be hard to control.
Sugar is also bad for your teeth, as it
forms an acid that attacks the outer
enamel and can lead to tooth decay.
Making the switch to
lower-sugar,
healthier cereals may seem hard at first
if you are used to having the higher
sugar varieties. Your taste becomes
used to their high sugar content and so
healthier cereals containing less sugar
might not taste as sweet initially.
However, your taste will soon adapt and
they will taste sweeter.
You can make these breakfast cereals
even healthier by adding fruit such as
berries or sliced banana. These will add
vitamins as well as natural sweetness.
Many high-sugar cereals are also very
processed. This means that they lose a
lot of their fibre content.
Fibre is
important for the body, as it is digested
slowly and releases energy more
steadily. This helps to prevent rapid
rises in blood glucose and will also
make you feel fuller for longer.
Breakfast Cereals - Comparison of Sugar
Content in a 50g Serving
SUGAR
NO. OF
CUBES
Toffee Crisp
12
3
12
3
CEREAL
CEREAL
SUGAR
NO. OF
CUBES
Shredded Wheat
0.4
<1
Golden Grahams
Shredded Wheat
Bitesize
0.4
<1
Fruit loops
12.5
3
Readybrek
0.5
<1
Golden Nuggets
12.5
3
Oatibix
1.5
<1
Nesquik
12.5
3
All Bran
1.5
<1
Sugar Puffs
14.5
4
Weetabix
2.2
1
Crunchy Nut
Granola
14.5
4
Cornflakes
4
1
Krave
15
4
Rice Krispies
5
1
Ricicles
17
4
Weetabix
Crunchy Bran
7
2
Coco Pops
17.5
5
Shreddies
7.5
2
Crunchy Nut
Cornflakes
17.5
5
8
2
Frosties
18.5
5
8.5
2
Special K
8.5
2
Mornflake
Classic Muesli
10
All Bran Flakes
10
3
Rice Krispies
Multigrain
10.5
3
Cheerios
10.5
3
Just Right
11.5
Alpen Muesli
Original
11.5
Fruit ‘n’ Fibre
12
Alpen Muesli (No
added Sugar)
Weetabix
Bitesize
*
Key
Green
Best
Yellow
Good
Red
Avoid
3
*
3*
3*
3
* These cereals contain fruit
and so will look like they have
more sugar in them.