Cereals Step Up to Better Nutrition
Do you agree with Tony the Tiger that Frosted Flakes are grrrreeeeaaat? If so, you're not alone, with the new labeling and advertising planned by Kellogg to help promote better nutrient content in their cereals. They plan to limit the advertising to children of products that do not meet fundamental nutritional standards. Voluntary changes are underway over the next 18 months for roughly half of the products the company presently markets to kids. It's pretty good advice for adults as well.
Here are the new cereal standards, based on a standard serving (listed on the box):
- no more than 200 calories
- no trans fat
- no more than 2 grams of saturated fat
- no more than 230 mg sodium
- no more than 12 grams of sugar
If a cereal does not meet these requirements, they won't be advertised to children (including mention of branded movie and/or TV characters). Some cereals will be reformulated to meet the new guidelines.
So, check out your own and your children's favorite cereals for their nutritional content, and see how they stack up.
I think this is a great step in the right direction in promoting more healthful cereal choices to both children and their parents! Can other food groups be far behind?
What do you thnk about all of this? A good thing, or government meddling?
Comments
I would love to see cereals reformulated to be healthier food choices. I think it is good for government to get involved and to try to control cereal marketing. I'm just as influenced by advertising...I don't think it is just a child problem. I love cereal, especially chocolate cereal. Cereal is a trigger food for me and I have a terrible time with portion control when it comes to cereal. It's too much like candy for me. I can't have it in my house. I feel sorry for people who have to buy cereal for their children.
It seems that the new regulations don't address the issue of high fructose corn syrup that is an ingredient in so many popular cereals, especially Kellogg's products. There are also some that have partially hydrogenated oil and yet say they don't contain trans fats. How much of this is allowed before they have to list the oils as trans fats?
I think one needs to be careful here. If the FDA won't let us know whether or not we are eating cloned food, then how can we rest assured a cereal label is accurate?
You cannot trust the FDA to protect you against anything, bad food or bad drugs. Consumers beware.
They are not even required to put everything they put in your food on the ingredients label or they just say it falls under the vague listings of "spices" (MSG), "artificial flavor" (chemicals), etc. Who knows what all that includes?
