CONNECTIONS to HEALTH

What's for Breakfast? Do you know what constitutes a healthy cereal? It is apparent that most of us in the UK don't, if the Which guide to cereals is anything to go by. Most of us are giving our children and ourselves the equivalent of a bowl of a chocolate cake to start the day!! Now I know that you wouldn't really give your child a bowl of cake for breakfast but if you are looking at the list of ingredients and interpreting them correctly then this is what most of us are doing. Horrifying isn't it? It seems that these manufacturing companies rely on us becoming addicted to sugar when we are young, so we will be a customer for life. For detailed information about what is going into most cereals as far as sugar, salt and fat are concerned got to the Which guide to cereals at www.which.co.uk/cereals and check up on the brands you are using. Just as an example 31 of the cereals out of the 100 assessed contained more than 4 teaspoons of sugar per the recommended serving, in fact only 8 out of the 100 had a green light for healthy sugar levels. If your child is anything like mine and has a healthy appetite in a morning, then they may be having servings above the recommended size, meaning that the amount of these undesirable ingredients they are having increases, sometimes by a huge amount. An alternative to these mass produced, processed breakfasts is porridge, toast, fruit and yoghurt, a boiled egg or something along these lines. Reducing the amount of sugar consumed in the morning would help with concentration levels, performance at school or work and behaviour. Plus the long term benefits to health in keeping the blood sugar levels under control. Take care when buying breakfast, it is not all that it is meant to be. Post Script As a post script to this article we have just found out that Kellogs is now making the ludicrous claim that Cocoa Crispies boosts children's immune systems! Read the article here.

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