Breakfast Cereal Surprise

Take a look at the two bowls of cereal pictured to the right: Frosted Mini Wheats (pictured to the right - top) to a Shredded Oat Cereal (pictured to the right - bottom). Which do you think has more sugar?

Actually they basically have the same amount of sugar added! Frosted Mini Wheats have 11 grams of sugar (54 gram serving size) and Shredded Oats have 12 grams of sugar (58 gram serving size).

The lesson: don't judge a food just by the looks, especially when it comes to breakfast cereal. Even if you can't see the sugar, it maybe there! 

So how much does 12 grams of sugar equal? It's equal to about 3 teaspoons worth of added sugar!

Here are examples of cereal options with less than one teaspoon of sugar (4 grams of sugar) per serving:

Nature's Path Corn Puffs - 0 grams (Serving size: 1 cup) 

Plain Oatmeal - 0 grams (Serving size: 1/2 cup)

Nuts.com Quinoa Puffs - 0 grams (Serving size: 1.8 oz) 

Cherrios - 1 gram (Serving size: 1 cup)

Kix - 2 grams (Serving size: 1 cup)

How to Calculate the Grams of Sugar Per Serving:

To figure out the grams of sugar per serving of a cereal. Take the total grams of sugar and divide by 4, this will tell you about how many teaspoons of added sugar there are per serving!

For example, pictured left is the Nutrition Facts for Frosted Mini Wheats. One serving has 11 grams of sugar. Divide 11 by 4 and you get about 3! That is 3 teaspoons of added sugar per serving.

Exception to the rule: if a cereal has dried fruit added, that will contribue to the toatl grams of sugar per serving, although some of the sugar will be coming from the dried fruit.