I undertook a review of highly sensitive corporate documents. In the last decade or so, Honey Nut Cheerios has fallen to nine grams of sugars per serving, from 11. Back in 2009, the company made news by announcing an initiative had already been underway to drop the sugar figure into single digits in such cereals marketed to children. General Mills refers to cereals like Honey Nut Cheerios as “ presweetened” - putting the sugar, brown sugar and honey into your cereal so you don’t have to. It sued the company over health claims made about another Cheerios offshoot, Cheerios Protein. The center has quarreled with General Mills before. “We’ve been saying for years that Honey Nut Cheerios has more sugar than honey and more salt than nuts, in fact it’s got no nuts at all, it’s just got almond flavor.” “The company has capitalized on the good name of the original,” Ms. The newest offering, Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios, has what looks like sugar flakes on it, but it actually has a lower sugar content than Honey Nut Cheerios. Those include far more sugary options like Pumpkin Spice Cheerios and Apple Cinnamon Cheerios. Unfortunately, that makes the contrast with its spinoffs difficult. The plain version is low in sugar, “and you’re getting some oat fiber that can help lower your cholesterol modestly,” said Bonnie Liebman, director of nutrition at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The cereal’s forebear, Cheerios, originally called Cheerioats, was born in 1941 and has a more favorable nutrition profile. To be so singularly focused on one ingredient - sugar - is irresponsible and doesn’t help consumers look at the total nutrition offered.” “What you didn’t mention is that the number one ingredient is oats. “You mentioned that three of the top six ingredients in Honey Nut Cheerios are sugar, brown sugar and honey,” Mike Siemienas, a spokesman for the company, wrote in a statement. The same group found that one cup of the cereal had more sugar than three Chips Ahoy! cookies. An Environmental Working Group analysis of a number of popular cereals - a report that linked sugary cereals to the “nation’s childhood obesity epidemic” - put Honey Nut Cheerios’s sugar content second only to Fruity Pebbles. It actually has about nine times as much sugar as plain Cheerios, per serving. Previously, I assumed Honey Nut Cheerios was a slightly sweeter Cheerios, but you learn things when you finally get around to reading the back of the box. Three of the top six ingredients are sweeteners: sugar, brown sugar and honey. I looked at the back of the box and could see why. The only thing I could think about when I ate it again for the first time in years was how incredibly sweet it is. Roughly 151 million boxes and other containers of various sizes were sold over the past year, well ahead of the second best-selling breakfast cereal, Frosted Flakes, according to IRI, a Chicago based market research firm. Honey Nut is America’s best-selling breakfast cereal, and by a comfortable margin. But sometimes I finish my box faster than my kids do and find myself straying to their side of the cupboard. I had a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios recently.
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