Dispatches has just done a program on the fat, sugar and salt content of most British breakfast cereals. Not surprisingly they found that packaging was confusing and meant that consumers did not really know which, if any cereals were healthy.
I thought I would look through my GF cereal collection to see if I could work out how much salt/ sugar they contained and if they were healthy according to the food standards agency.
Salt and sugar in GF food
A recent survey showed that most gluten free ranges available in supermarkets were proportionally higher in salt and sugar than their wheat based counterparts.
For example Sainsbury’s own GF Jaffa Cakes contained more than 6 times the amount of salt than Sainsbury’s own brand wheat based Jaffa Cakes.
Safe salt and sugar safe levels
According to the FSA website food is classed as high in salt if it contains more than 1.5 grams of salt per 100 grams or 0.6 grams of sodium.
A product is classed as high in sugar if it contains more than 15 grams of sugar per 100 grams.
Now on most of the cereal packets they give two measurements one for a 100 gram portion and one for a 30 gram bowl of cereal. While I do find this information useful, I will be looking at the 100 gram bowl nutritional information.
This is because I regularly have more than one bowl of cereal a day and I tend to finish a box of cereal a week.
According to the Guardian’s website there are 26 grams of sugar per 100 gram serving of Chocolate Stars. Interestingly Aberland and Cole who are the first link in a Google search for this cereal do not include the sugar level as part of their product information.
I bought this cereal from Tescos and had them for two weeks (I bought two boxes). Despite not changing my teeth cleaning routine I did notice that my teeth felt more sensitive after finishing the cereal, and my gums started to bleed.
It is possible that is was due to other changes in my diet, but I don’t think this is likely because my diet did not really change with the exception of the cereal. Doves do great GF bread and other products but the sugar content in this cereal surprised me.
Whole Earth Corn Flakes and Whole Earth Maple Frosted Corn Flakes
I love both of these and regularly have them for breakfast. I switched to these when I finally accepted that I could not eat anything Kellogg’s.
Their packaging really confuses me, the Corn Flakes have 80 grams of Carbohydrates per 100 grams, but only 4 grams of those are sugars. After some google research it seem’s likely that these are starch based carbohydrates, which are slow releasing in energy and thus good for you. Which is great!
However Whole Earth Corn Flakes contain 1.8 grams of salt per 100 grams which classes them as a high salt product according to the FSA.
The Maple Frosted Flakes have 80.3 grams of carbohydrates per 100 grams, with 21 grams being sugar. I can understand that the sugar content would be high because of the maple syrup.
The salt level is at 1.3 grams per 100 grams which means the Maple Flakes could be classed as having a medium salt level.
I have been eating Kelkin porridge for the past week, and have felt fuller during the day as a result.
Like oat porridge this rice based version is the most healthiest cereal I have in my cupboard. It contains 72 grams of carbohydrates per 100 grams with 1.9 grams being sugars.
It only contains 0.1 grams of salt. However the box is also the smallest I have in my cupboard which means it does not cover me for as many breakfasts as my other cereals.
Kallo Organic Honey Puffed Rice
Slightly annoying packaging because it includes a ‘nutrionists tip’ on the pack which points out that
Kallo Organic Puffed Rice Cereal has 20 times less salt than other popular cereal
The bold is not mine, and the packaging doesn’t highlight that it has 25 grams of sugar per 100 gram serving (85 grams of carbs).
There is a healthier version as Kallo Naturally Puffed Brown Rice Cereal which is just rice with nothing else. However I have not been able to find this version of the pre=”the “>Kallo cereal in my local Asda, Morrisons or Tescos.
Conclusion
I have been writing this blog post on and off over the past 24 hours, to ensure that I had enough time to research all the related nutritional information. Even with this extra time it has been confusing to work out what is good for me and what isn’t.
Dispatches said that the average consumer only takes 3 seconds to make a decision about which cereal they would like to buy. I don’t think current labelling on any of my cereals was clear about their sugar or salt content, and I think that as a result it is very hard for a coeliac to avoid living a high salt high sugar diet.
Hannah – you will probably find this amusing!
http://www.naturalnews.com/027388_breakfast_cereal_health_claims.html
Hi, picked up your info on breakfast food. I am able to eat oats and have found moreflakes difficult to source. I found out this firm also do own brands for the supermarkets so have been using sainsburys for a couple of years. I can`t find any ref. to this on any of the sites. Do you have a view?
Also are own brand cornflakes now a no no?
Thanks for the website, very interesting
Peter
I don’t know about own brand cereals because at the moment I don’t have any of them in my cubboard. The key problem is that alot of mainstream cereals contain barley malt which I have found I react to hence why I have moved away from my old favourite kelloggs crunchy nut
Moreflakes I think are found in Asda’s gluten free section and they make a gluten free version of a crunchy nut style cereal. Very tasty but I also remember that it tended to clump together. I don’t know about its salt or sugar content but will look into it if I find some.
The only problem I found in Asda is that sometimes they put GF stuff in really silly places. As a general rule all the Whole Earth things are never in the GF section!
Pingback: Coeliac back on message | The Cardiff Coeliac