6 ms·

The benefits of breakfast cereal consumption (2014)

30 points by oidar 4y ago

HighlandSpring 4y ago
- HighlandSpring 4y ago
  Fine, will elaborate: > Regular consumption of breakfast cereals is associated with diets that are lower in fat why is this necessarily a good thing? > Regular consumption of breakfast cereals is associated with diets that are higher in vitamins and minerals for adults, adolescents, and children is the subset of vitamins and minerals and the corresponding RDAs that they look at responsible for driving meaningful outcomes or do they just pick whatever's convenient? > Regular consumption of breakfast cereals is associated with a greater likelihood of meeting recommended nutrient intakes again, recommended nutrient intakes is very convenient considering they're derived from how nourished a population is, i.e: as a nourishment goes down so do the recommended levels. > Consumption of breakfast cereals is associated with higher daily milk intake Only thing so far that might actually be causal to health. Probably not though because the frankenmilk we consume today is not the raw milk we were consuming a century ago. > Consumption of presweetened breakfast cereals does not increase the total daily energy intake in children’s diets calories in/ calories out is not as useful as made out to be, there's quite little wrong with consuming a lot of calories if those calories are well utilised > Consumption of breakfast cereals does not increase the total daily sodium intake Sodium is an essential electrolyte/signaling ion. Too much is bad in the presence of insulin insensitivity. Too little is really bad if the individual is metabolcially sound for the most part. > Consumption of presweetened breakfast cereals does not increase total daily sugar intake of children and adolescents second one so far that might actually be a really good proxy tl;dr: no idea how many of these are useful proxies for things that actually matter
bitwize 4y ago
Meet Cereal Killer... as in Froot Loops. But he does know things. I wonder how much of these benefits are conferred by consumption of the cereal, and how much are due to the kind of person who eats breakfast cereal, especially as an adult, just preferring a low fat, high fiber diet.
ajshankar 4y ago
"This review was commissioned and paid for by the Australian Breakfast Cereal Manufacturers Forum of the Australian Food and Grocery Council."
- mschild 4y ago
  Good catch. I think sponsorships should always be disclosed in the abstract or introduction.
  - davidbanham 4y ago
    It was the first sentence of the second paragraph of the introduction.
- RichardCNormos 4y ago
  Great eye. It should be part of public education to teach kids to question both whether or not something is true, and, "who benefits from me believing this is true"?
  - GrooberThiy 4y ago
- lucasyvas 4y ago
  Honestly not worth reading it at all knowing this.
- gwerbret 4y ago
  And right below that: "Author disclosures: P. G. Williams, no conflicts of interest."
  - o0-0o 4y ago
    Wouldn't the conflict of interest be that this person was paid by lobbyists for the article he wrote? I mean, I wonder what his defs. of conflicts of interest are? Sounds like they don't match mine.
Havoc 4y ago
Definitely not reading all of that, but this sentence did jump out to me: >Much of this effect is likely to be due to the fortification of many breakfast cereals. Might as well take a multi-vit and skip the sugars & carbs...
- kspacewalk2 4y ago
  >Might as well take a multi-vit Or don't. Makes little if any difference[0] [0] https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/routine-vitamin-supplementation-mostly-useless/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/routine-vitamin-supplementa...
- irrational 4y ago
  But, the sugars and carbs are the only reason I get out of bed.
RappingBoomer 4y ago
cereals are out of fashion right now due to Bro Science on the internet, but most people of eurasian descent are literally evolved to eat cereal grain...yeah, in the last 5k year, very roughly, it was the basis of our diet
- RC_ITR 4y ago
  Oatmeal/overnight oats are as popular as ever. Sugar-coated fiber-free dessert cereals are what’s out of fashion. In case a language barrier problem is at cause: there are cereal grains but this study is about things like fruity pebbles.
- Cupertino95014 4y ago
  "out of fashion" is so right. Just look at the herd of negative comments here.
  - inferiorhuman 4y ago
- pid-1 4y ago
  Your avg supermarket cereal is full of sugar. Is avoiding sugar bro science? I generally eat porridge for breakfast, good enough.
- mekoka 4y ago
  > cereals are out of fashion right now due to Bro Science on the internet You're wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loren_Cordain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loren_Cordain Call it bad science if you want, which you'll then have to defend, but it's not "bro" science.
  - triyambakam 4y ago
    > The data for Cordain's book only came from six contemporary hunter-gatherer groups, mainly living in marginal habitats. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet
RichardCNormos 4y ago
> In addition to providing an important source of vitamins and minerals, breakfast cereals are also potentially important sources of antioxidants and phytoestrogens Always make sure to get enough estrogen in your breakfast.
- triyambakam 4y ago
  So you avoid animal milk, then? That's even more compatible with humans than plant estrogens.
- hombre_fatal 4y ago
  Searching for bad effects of phytoestrogen online seems to bring up inconclusive results. But my first search regarding milk introduced it as an exogenous source of pure estrogen which is interesting in the context of breakfast cereals: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19496976/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19496976/
chrisseaton 4y ago
When I was young, in the late 90s, supermarkets here in the UK had an entire aisle just with breakfast cereals. Now my local supermarket has about six feet of them and that's it. Crazy how an entire food sector has just entirely collapsed. Literally the only people I see eating cereal now are doing it ironically (Momofuku etc.)
- mrec 4y ago
  It's still an entire aisle at my supermarket (granted, a big one) in the UK. I honestly wasn't aware that it had gone out of fashion. What are the cool kids eating instead now, avocado toast?
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    My seven-year-old's friends seem to eat porridge, toast, fruit, that kind of thing. Genuinely can't remember the last time I saw a child eat a bowl of cereal, and that's not some kind of weird principle of mine they eat plenty of other junk. Now I think about it I think it's also a changing attitude to milk, not just cereal. People don't seem to just consume milk like we did as children.
    - mrec 4y ago
      Yeah, I did some digging and UK per capita liquid milk consumption is down 50% since 1974. That's quite a drop.
- kspacewalk2 4y ago
  Definitely not the case in Canada. Still almost an entire aisle devoted to this particular kind of sugary junk food. Even in smaller grocery stores.
- JoeAltmaier 4y ago
  Depends on the store. Trader Joe's has 6 different boxes, when they have them at all. Local chain has an entire aisle, often with 3 or 4 sizes of the popular ones. 100's of choices. Dozens of granolas. Fruity rings from every manufacturer you've heard of and several you haven't. So alive and well in the US Midwest
ilaksh 4y ago
Every time I go to the grocery store and see all of the sugary breakfast cereal laid out, it reminds me of a candy aisle. I keep expecting a lot of it to actually become illegal and disappear because of the very excessive amount of sugar in most of them and the fact that they are marketed to kids as a daily staple. Don't get me wrong, I love Corn-Pops and stuff, but I think it should be considered a dessert item for a weekend or something rather than something you feed to your kids every day. There are plenty of cereals that are sweetened but are not going completely overboard like the old-fashioned ones, and I think that should be okay for breakfast. There should be a cut-off on the proportional amount of sugar versus other ingredients.
- irrational 4y ago
  Don’t even joke about making my Lucky Charms illegal. I’ve been eating it for breakfast for more than 50 years and plan on doing so until I die.
  - osigurdson 4y ago
    That’s awesome. Sometimes we very analytical people need to realize that life > lifespan.
    - irrational 4y ago
      I don’t think it will dramatically affect my lifespan. My doctor says I have the body of a 35 year old and my family almost always lives well into their 100s.
JoeAltmaier 4y ago
How about those of us that don't eat breakfast at all?
- outside1234 4y ago
  Cancer
- amelius 4y ago
  Intermittent fasting seems like a good idea
ddmma 4y ago
There was a time when nature was balancing human dietary habits and that is the base foundation. Mass production, marketing departments and salespeople replaced food intakes based on their business results and the messages implanted into consumers heads are generating more sales. Consumers don’t have the resources to make these kind of analysis and even so Kellogg's or Nestle would dim out their opposing communication.
BLKNSLVR 4y ago
My kids most frequently eat breakfast cereals at 9:30pm
haunter 4y ago
>For this review, “breakfast cereal” was defined to include ready-to-eat breakfast cereal (RTEC), oats/porridge, and muesli. That's a very very broad definition. A proper müsli is miles away from a processed sugary junk food breakfast cereal (eg Froot Loops)
- hombre_fatal 4y ago
  Agreed. A cup of oats has everything from fiber to polyphenols to 11g protein to a respectable amount of minerals (zinc, manganese, copper, magnesium, selenium). A cup of Frosted Flakes has almost no fiber and really nothing except whatever they fortified it with.
  - fsckboy 4y ago
    according to what I just read on wikipedia, the original meusli recipe from Dr. Bircher has 1 tablespoon oats.
    - hombre_fatal 4y ago
      My comment refers to "oats" in the quotation, something that can obviously replace sugary boxed cereals. But, on your topic, modern muesli is more like an unroasted granola mix these days. Mostly grains like oats and nuts. The original recipe even prescribes the pit and core of an apple.
_HMCB_ 4y ago
Does Fruit Loops count?
goldforever 4y ago
fmajid 4y ago
“Breakfast cereal” encompasses Captain Crunch and Lucky Charms on one end of the spectrum, and Bran Flakes or oatmeal on the other, so expecting a consistent effect is a fool’s errand.

30 points by oidar 4y ago

HighlandSpring 4y ago
Fine, will elaborate: > Regular consumption of breakfast cereals is associated with diets that are lower in fat why is this necessarily a good thing? > Regular consumption of breakfast cereals is associated with diets that are higher in vitamins and minerals for adults, adolescents, and children is the subset of vitamins and minerals and the corresponding RDAs that they look at responsible for driving meaningful outcomes or do they just pick whatever's convenient? > Regular consumption of breakfast cereals is associated with a greater likelihood of meeting recommended nutrient intakes again, recommended nutrient intakes is very convenient considering they're derived from how nourished a population is, i.e: as a nourishment goes down so do the recommended levels. > Consumption of breakfast cereals is associated with higher daily milk intake Only thing so far that might actually be causal to health. Probably not though because the frankenmilk we consume today is not the raw milk we were consuming a century ago. > Consumption of presweetened breakfast cereals does not increase the total daily energy intake in children’s diets calories in/ calories out is not as useful as made out to be, there's quite little wrong with consuming a lot of calories if those calories are well utilised > Consumption of breakfast cereals does not increase the total daily sodium intake Sodium is an essential electrolyte/signaling ion. Too much is bad in the presence of insulin insensitivity. Too little is really bad if the individual is metabolcially sound for the most part. > Consumption of presweetened breakfast cereals does not increase total daily sugar intake of children and adolescents second one so far that might actually be a really good proxy tl;dr: no idea how many of these are useful proxies for things that actually matter

Meet Cereal Killer... as in Froot Loops. But he does know things. I wonder how much of these benefits are conferred by consumption of the cereal, and how much are due to the kind of person who eats breakfast cereal, especially as an adult, just preferring a low fat, high fiber diet.

ajshankar 4y ago

"This review was commissioned and paid for by the Australian Breakfast Cereal Manufacturers Forum of the Australian Food and Grocery Council."

mschild 4y ago
Good catch. I think sponsorships should always be disclosed in the abstract or introduction.
- davidbanham 4y ago
  It was the first sentence of the second paragraph of the introduction.
RichardCNormos 4y ago
Great eye. It should be part of public education to teach kids to question both whether or not something is true, and, "who benefits from me believing this is true"?
- GrooberThiy 4y ago
lucasyvas 4y ago
Honestly not worth reading it at all knowing this.
gwerbret 4y ago
And right below that: "Author disclosures: P. G. Williams, no conflicts of interest."
- o0-0o 4y ago
  Wouldn't the conflict of interest be that this person was paid by lobbyists for the article he wrote? I mean, I wonder what his defs. of conflicts of interest are? Sounds like they don't match mine.

Havoc 4y ago

Definitely not reading all of that, but this sentence did jump out to me: >Much of this effect is likely to be due to the fortification of many breakfast cereals. Might as well take a multi-vit and skip the sugars & carbs...

kspacewalk2 4y ago
>Might as well take a multi-vit Or don't. Makes little if any difference[0] [0] https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/routine-vitamin-supplementation-mostly-useless/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/routine-vitamin-supplementa...
irrational 4y ago
But, the sugars and carbs are the only reason I get out of bed.

RappingBoomer 4y ago

cereals are out of fashion right now due to Bro Science on the internet, but most people of eurasian descent are literally evolved to eat cereal grain...yeah, in the last 5k year, very roughly, it was the basis of our diet

RC_ITR 4y ago
Oatmeal/overnight oats are as popular as ever. Sugar-coated fiber-free dessert cereals are what’s out of fashion. In case a language barrier problem is at cause: there are cereal grains but this study is about things like fruity pebbles.
Cupertino95014 4y ago
"out of fashion" is so right. Just look at the herd of negative comments here.
- inferiorhuman 4y ago
pid-1 4y ago
Your avg supermarket cereal is full of sugar. Is avoiding sugar bro science? I generally eat porridge for breakfast, good enough.
mekoka 4y ago
> cereals are out of fashion right now due to Bro Science on the internet You're wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loren_Cordain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loren_Cordain Call it bad science if you want, which you'll then have to defend, but it's not "bro" science.
- triyambakam 4y ago
  > The data for Cordain's book only came from six contemporary hunter-gatherer groups, mainly living in marginal habitats. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet

RichardCNormos 4y ago

> In addition to providing an important source of vitamins and minerals, breakfast cereals are also potentially important sources of antioxidants and phytoestrogens Always make sure to get enough estrogen in your breakfast.

triyambakam 4y ago
So you avoid animal milk, then? That's even more compatible with humans than plant estrogens.
hombre_fatal 4y ago
Searching for bad effects of phytoestrogen online seems to bring up inconclusive results. But my first search regarding milk introduced it as an exogenous source of pure estrogen which is interesting in the context of breakfast cereals: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19496976/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19496976/

chrisseaton 4y ago

When I was young, in the late 90s, supermarkets here in the UK had an entire aisle just with breakfast cereals. Now my local supermarket has about six feet of them and that's it. Crazy how an entire food sector has just entirely collapsed. Literally the only people I see eating cereal now are doing it ironically (Momofuku etc.)

mrec 4y ago
It's still an entire aisle at my supermarket (granted, a big one) in the UK. I honestly wasn't aware that it had gone out of fashion. What are the cool kids eating instead now, avocado toast?
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  My seven-year-old's friends seem to eat porridge, toast, fruit, that kind of thing. Genuinely can't remember the last time I saw a child eat a bowl of cereal, and that's not some kind of weird principle of mine they eat plenty of other junk. Now I think about it I think it's also a changing attitude to milk, not just cereal. People don't seem to just consume milk like we did as children.
  - mrec 4y ago
    Yeah, I did some digging and UK per capita liquid milk consumption is down 50% since 1974. That's quite a drop.
kspacewalk2 4y ago
Definitely not the case in Canada. Still almost an entire aisle devoted to this particular kind of sugary junk food. Even in smaller grocery stores.
JoeAltmaier 4y ago
Depends on the store. Trader Joe's has 6 different boxes, when they have them at all. Local chain has an entire aisle, often with 3 or 4 sizes of the popular ones. 100's of choices. Dozens of granolas. Fruity rings from every manufacturer you've heard of and several you haven't. So alive and well in the US Midwest

ilaksh 4y ago

Every time I go to the grocery store and see all of the sugary breakfast cereal laid out, it reminds me of a candy aisle. I keep expecting a lot of it to actually become illegal and disappear because of the very excessive amount of sugar in most of them and the fact that they are marketed to kids as a daily staple. Don't get me wrong, I love Corn-Pops and stuff, but I think it should be considered a dessert item for a weekend or something rather than something you feed to your kids every day. There are plenty of cereals that are sweetened but are not going completely overboard like the old-fashioned ones, and I think that should be okay for breakfast. There should be a cut-off on the proportional amount of sugar versus other ingredients.

irrational 4y ago
Don’t even joke about making my Lucky Charms illegal. I’ve been eating it for breakfast for more than 50 years and plan on doing so until I die.
- osigurdson 4y ago
  That’s awesome. Sometimes we very analytical people need to realize that life > lifespan.
  - irrational 4y ago
    I don’t think it will dramatically affect my lifespan. My doctor says I have the body of a 35 year old and my family almost always lives well into their 100s.

JoeAltmaier 4y ago

How about those of us that don't eat breakfast at all?

outside1234 4y ago
Cancer
amelius 4y ago
Intermittent fasting seems like a good idea

ddmma 4y ago

There was a time when nature was balancing human dietary habits and that is the base foundation. Mass production, marketing departments and salespeople replaced food intakes based on their business results and the messages implanted into consumers heads are generating more sales. Consumers don’t have the resources to make these kind of analysis and even so Kellogg's or Nestle would dim out their opposing communication.

BLKNSLVR 4y ago

My kids most frequently eat breakfast cereals at 9:30pm

haunter 4y ago

>For this review, “breakfast cereal” was defined to include ready-to-eat breakfast cereal (RTEC), oats/porridge, and muesli. That's a very very broad definition. A proper müsli is miles away from a processed sugary junk food breakfast cereal (eg Froot Loops)

hombre_fatal 4y ago
Agreed. A cup of oats has everything from fiber to polyphenols to 11g protein to a respectable amount of minerals (zinc, manganese, copper, magnesium, selenium). A cup of Frosted Flakes has almost no fiber and really nothing except whatever they fortified it with.
- fsckboy 4y ago
  according to what I just read on wikipedia, the original meusli recipe from Dr. Bircher has 1 tablespoon oats.
  - hombre_fatal 4y ago
    My comment refers to "oats" in the quotation, something that can obviously replace sugary boxed cereals. But, on your topic, modern muesli is more like an unroasted granola mix these days. Mostly grains like oats and nuts. The original recipe even prescribes the pit and core of an apple.

_HMCB_ 4y ago

Does Fruit Loops count?

goldforever 4y ago

fmajid 4y ago

“Breakfast cereal” encompasses Captain Crunch and Lucky Charms on one end of the spectrum, and Bran Flakes or oatmeal on the other, so expecting a consistent effect is a fool’s errand.