Stating the obvious
Those of you who are long-time readers of Dr. Wright's Nutrition & Healing have seen his occasional column called the "Department of Duh." He uses it to discuss so-called "discoveries" that should be painfully obvious to just about anyone with even a faint glimmer of common sense. Sort of like the article from Reuters Health that I read recently, which proclaimed that "Some U.S. cereals marketed to U.S. children are more than half sugar by weight." Shocked? I didn't think so. And in an even less earth-shattering revelation, the article also stated that "many [cereals] get only fair scores on nutritional value." Reuters got its news from Consumer Reports, which compared nutritional statistics of 27 popular breakfast cereals, focusing on sugar, fiber, sodium, and calorie content. The lowest scores went to Kellogg's Corn Pops, Post's Golden Crisp, and Kellogg's Honey Smacks. The latter two turned out to contain 50 percent sugar, which really shouldn't be so surprising considering "Honey Smacks" used to be called "Sugar Smacks." Cheerios earned top billing in the review, and the cereals right behind it earned "very good" marks, but it's debatable just how good they really are, since their ratings are relative to the dismal scores the other products received. I'm certainly not downplaying the importance of breakfast. But, let's face it, no one is going to get the nutrition they really need out of a box with a cartoon frog, bear, or tiger on the front. Sources:
"Some U.S. cereals more than half sugar: report," Reuters Health news, 10/2/08
"Consumer Reports rates kids' cereal," KDKA (www.kdka.com), 10/2/08 | 
