Five Healthiest Breakfast Cereals - Names of Breakfast Cereals & Their Nutritional Values

Five Healthiest Breakfast Cereals - Names of Breakfast Cereals & Their Nutritional Values
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Introduction

In part 1 of this series I offered tips on what to look for in a breakfast cereal, and now I have done some of the legwork for you. In case you don’t have time to read the nutrition information and ingredients on every box in the long cereal aisle, here are some healthy name-brand breakfast cereals.

As noted in part 1, you are basically looking for whole grains, low levels of fat and sugar, and high levels of protein and fiber. You should also look for minimal preservatives.

Five other cereals listed below don’t fit the bill despite healthy reputations.

I focus on the big brands available in most grocery stores. There also are great cereals made by small organic brands and even locally made bulk cereals in some health food stores. The list also doesn’t include hot cereals even though cream of wheat and oatmeal are some of the healthiest options on the market.

I compared 30-gram servings rather than 1/2 cup servings, which can vary widely in weight. Make sure you are comparing bran to bran.

Here are five of the top healthy breakfast cereals:

1. General Mills Fiber One

Scoop it: A whole-grain cereal with 1 gram fat, 14 grams dietary fiber, no sugar and 2 grams protein.

Skip it: The cereal contains few preservatives but replaces the sugar with aspartame, a chemical sugar substitute which worries many eaters.

2. Post Shredded Wheat

Scoop it: A whole-grain cereal with 1 gram fat, 6 grams dietary fiber, 0 grams sugar and 5 grams protein. It’s nothing but wheat.

Skip it: Some can’t stomach the plain variety. The frosted variety just adds natural sugar, which may not be a concern for some. The honey-nut flavor has added fats and other ingredients. Go with the frosted squares and feel like a kid again.

3. Kellogg’s All-Bran Complete Wheat Flakes

Scoop it: A whole-grain cereal with 0.5 grams fat, 5 grams dietary fiber, 5 grams sugar and 3 grams protein.

Skip it: It has both sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, but the sugar contain still isn’t terribly high.

4. Post Grape Nuts

Scoop it: A whole-grain cereal with 1 gram fat, 7 grams dietary fiber, 4 grams sugar and 6 grams protein.

Skip it: There are no grapes or nuts, so it may be considered false advertising. More to the point, the only potentially worrisome ingredient is soy lecithin. Many worry about the impact of soy products on female hormones.

5. General Mills Cheerios

Scoop it: A whole-grain cereal with 2 grams fat, 3 grams dietary fiber, 1 gram sugar and 3 grams protein.

Skip it: Cheerios has been under attack for making inflated health claims. It still claims to help lower cholesterol, which is probably true. It does contain some ingredients your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize, including tripotassium phosphate.

Don’t Judge a Cereal by Its Name

These are not the five unhealthiest cereals. Those would be down in the kids’ cereal section, ironically. We want our kids to be healthy but we start their day by filling them with sugar and little nutritional value.

These cereal names might turn off kids, but attract parents. These seem like healthy breakfast cereals, but they don’t quite fit the bill. Some don’t have good levels of protein and fiber. Others are high in fat and packed with sugar. Others have additives and skimp on the whole grains. The worst have all of the above.

Don’t believe the name or the claim on the front of the box. Study the ingredients label and the nutritional information table.

1. Kellogg’s Special K

Scoop it: 0.5 gram fat, 0 grams dietary fiber, 4 grams sugar and 6 grams protein.

Skip it: The breakdown looks healthy, but this cereal mixes breakfast with a multivitamin, which will turn off food purists. The ingredient list is long and full of extra flavors and additives. It is also not a whole-grain cereal.

2. Post Grape Nuts Flakes

Scoop it: 1 gram fat, 3 grams dietary fiber, 4 grams sugar and 3 grams protein.

Skip it: It may seem just like the regular pebbles of Grape Nuts in a more appetizing flake form, but you’ll notice it is lower in fiber and protein. Stick to the pebbles, or maybe mix them with yogurt or another healthy cereal.

3. General Mills Basic 4

Scoop it: 2 grams fat, 3 grams dietary fiber, 14 grams sugar and 4 grams protein.

Skip it: Given the fact that so many cereals contain less than four ingredients, this has a very misleading name. The dozens of ingredients include palm kernel oil, various sugars and mystery flavors.

4. Kellogg’s Corn Flakes

Scoop it: 0 grams fat, 1 grams dietary fiber, 2 grams sugar and 2 grams protein.

Skip it: It’s a healthy, basic cereal, right? Not so much. The classic old standby doesn’t have many ingredients, but it also doesn’t have much nutritional value.

5. General Mills Total

Scoop it: 0.5 gram fat, 3 grams dietary fiber, 5 grams sugar and 2 grams protein.

Skip it: Again, General Mills creates a misleading name for a less healthy cereal. The nutritional values aren’t great and the relatively short ingredients include distilled monoglycerides and milk, oddly.

This post is part of the series: Finding the Best Breakfast Cereal

Finding the healthiest breakfast cereal doesn’t always mean looking at the front of the box. Many breakfast cereals can have misleading advertising. Learn tips on how to find the best breakfast cereal and discover the nutritional value of many popular brand-name breakfast cereals.

  1. What to Look for in a Breakfast Cereal
  2. Ten Healthy-Sounding Breakfast Cereals - Are They Nutritious?