Cereal Killer

I decided to take the top selling cereal and do a little research to find out how much your breakfast affects you. We can all agree, "you are what you eat". So, if that is the case than the food that we consume first thing in the morning creates our emotions and thought process for the rest of the day along with cell generation that produces a healthy body and abundant energy, or lack thereof. Personally, I have never been a fan of wet soggy floating items in a bowl, but millions upon millions of consumers love these cereals and often feel that this is all they have time for as they run out the door to work or school. Convenience has grabbed the human race by the throat and I am here to see if it is grabbing more than just that.

I researched the top selling cereal on the market and would agree that I see the number one rated cereal in the hands and mouths of all ages from tiny babies to elderly. Due to its ability to market to just about everyone, it is probably safe to say that we all have tried it during our lifetime. In case you didn't know, ingredients listed on the back of a box are ranked from the highest quantity to the least. So the top 3-4 listed is mostly what you are consuming. 

The first ingredient I found was a "binder" so before they add any kind of oats, or wheat or grain in this "whole grain cereal", they load it with a "glue" in order to keep it all together. This means that the largest quantity ingredient is a binder (glue), this binder is chemically treated to a native starch (grain) and is also used to bind paper... is that food? 

The 2nd ingredient is Tripotassium phosphate. This is a water-soluble ionic salt an is used as a emulsifier (keeps the floating things from completely falling apart) and with other products it is used as a fertilizer and foaming agent. 

The third ingredient is sugar; white bleached and highly processed sugar. White sugar is an industrially processed chemical not found in nature. 

Let me briefly break down the process used to make white sugar. First, they use sulfur dioxide to begin the bleaching process of the raw brown sugar cane. Next they use heavy syrup to continue the cleaning process to remove the outer coating of the raw sugar crystals. They then add calcium phosphate and calcium hydroxide (man made chemical) to the final stages of the bleaching process. This syrup is ran through a bed of activated carbon and repeatedly crystalized under vacuum, to produce white refined sugar.

What this means in regards to the cereal is that the first 3 ingredients are basically a glue that holds the water-soluble salt and chemically treated sugar together. 

The 4th ingredient is a grain, Oats. However they break it down into powder form in order to be the right consistency to make into pretty little fun shapes for human consumption. After that, another "glue" called wheat starch is added. Next, is a preservative following the glue called Tocopherol and in parenthesis say (Vitamin E). In this case it is a class of chemical compounds of which many have vitamin E activity, there is a huge difference. The last paragraph of ingredients on the box is a list of vitamins and minerals.

In summary, millions of people are starting their day with glue, salt, refined sugar, oat dust, more glue, preservative and "vitamins and minerals". 

Sally Fallon, founding president of the Weston A Price Foundation, a non-profit nutrition education foundation wrote an article on the scientific research done on lab rats and the effects of puffed cereal. 

            "The rats that received the whole wheat lived over a year on this diet. The rats that got nothing but water and vitamins lived about two months. The animals on water alone lived about a month. But the company’s own laboratory study showed that the rats given the vitamins, water and all the puffed wheat they wanted died within two weeks—they died before the rats that got no food at all. It wasn’t a matter of the rats dying of malnutrition. Autopsy revealed dysfunction of the pancreas, liver and kidneys and degeneration of the nerves of the spine, all signs of insulin shock."

Breakfast has always been known as the

"most important meal of the day"

It sets the tone for the hard working hours ahead, think before you pop a piece of puffed cereal into you and your children's mouth.

After all, we ARE WHAT WE EAT. 

Written by 

Someone Who Cares

Allison Suter aka Vita Girl