Healthy Eating Club Courses 
Know your breakfast cereals
Key Points
Look for breakfast cereals that have per 100g:
<10g fat, <14g sugar (1 teaspoon/30g serve), <600mg sodium, >5 g fibre
look for the word "whole" in the first ingredient; these cereals are less processed and contain more vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals.
* sugar comes from dried fruit
* if fat is "natural, unrefined" from nuts, seeds, soy e.g natural muesli
* if fat is added e.g animal fat, vegetable fat, vegetable oils
These cereals are often toasted in undesirable animal/hydrogenated vegetable fat and contain about 10% fat.
Audio Transcripts
Are refined (highly processed) breakfast cereals with added nutrients/fibre (e.g liquid breakfast Up&Go) the same as unrefined (minimally processed) "whole" cereals (e.g porridge made with rolled oats)?
The answer to this question is similar to the answer about whether white bread with added fibre is the same as wholegrain bread. Some fibre, vitamins and minerals may be added back into breakfast cereals which compensates for losses due to refining, but its impossible to add the mix of phytochemicals that are lost in the processing. 'Liquid breakfast' (Up&Go) has resistant starch added to it. It is missing insoluble fibre (found in the husk of wheat grains) as well as the phytochemicals because it is not made with the whole wheat grain.Ingredient list will tell you if:
The ingredient list will not only tell you what kind of ingredients are in the breakfast cereal but it will also give you some insight about the nutrient composition of the breakfast cereal.
* sugar is mainly coming from dried fruit
* if the fat is "natural, unrefined" from nuts, seeds, soy e.g natural muesli
* if fat is added e.g animal fat, vegetable fat, vegetable oils e.g toasted cerealsIt is better to get sugar found naturally in whole food such as in dried fruit because the sugar will be accompanied by other nutrients and antioxidant phytochemicals. Table sugar, glucose syrup, corn syrup etc are pure sugar with no other nutrients.
The same argument applies to fat. Fat from whole plant foods like seeds, nuts, grains, olives, soy avocado, coconut is "desirable naturally occuring unrefined fat" which tends to be unsaturated and accompanied by other nutrients and antioxidant phytochemicals. This is in contrast to animal and refined vegetable fats which not only contain saturated fat and in some cases trans fatty acids but they are not accompanied by other goodies. For example, natural muesli has 9% fat, but it is derived from desirable 'unrefined' fats from nuts and seeds. This is in contrast to some toasted or chocolate cereals, which have added animal or refined fats.
