Breakfast cereals still contain high levels of fat, salt and sugar, despite manufacturers' claims to have improved the healthiness of their products, according to a new survey by Which?
The consumer watchdog analysed the content of 275 different types of processed cereals and categorised them as red, amber or green for fat, salt and sugar, using the Food Standards Agency's proposed criteria for traffic-light health labelling of food. More than three-quarters of cereals had high levels of sugar, a fifth had high levels of salt and 7% had high levels of saturated fat.
Cereals targeted at children were particularly high in sugar, with 88% scoring a red. Although manufacturers have reduced salt content under pressure from the FSA, 13% of children's cereals still scored a red for being high in salt, and 10% scored red for being high in fat.
The three worst offenders overall were Quaker Oatso Simple Kids in any flavour, Kellogg's Coco Pops Straws and Mornflakes Pecan and Maple Crisp. All of these got a red light for sugar and saturated fat. Nine cereals contained more than four teaspoons of sugar per suggested portion and only 13% scored a green light for sugar.
Although fat content was generally medium to low, one of the worst offenders in this category was Sainsbury's Crunchy Oat cereal, which contained almost as much fat as the supermarket's thick pork sausages, at 20.3g per 100g.
In some cereals the fat content was increased by the presence of nuts, which contain healthy essential fats, but often the fat content derived from added fats, some of them hydrogenated vegetable oil.
Sue Davies, chief policy adviser at Which?, called for manufacturers to make healthier products and market them more responsibly. "Despite their healthy image, some cereals have high levels of salt, sugar and fat. With so much public concern about obesity and diet-related disease, we're concerned that most cereals marketed to children are so unhealthy."
Cereal manufacturers have opposed the FSA's labelling scheme, arguing that it is too simplistic and demonises certain foods. They chose instead to adopt their own non-judgmental scheme earlier this year, based not on traffic lights but on industry-devised "guideline daily amounts" for key nutrients such as fat and sugar.
The UK is the second largest consumer of breakfast cereal in the world. On average each Briton eats nearly 6kg of processed cereal a year.
Healthy eating?
The least healthy breakfast cereal, according to the traffic light scheme, was Jordan's Crispy Nut Four Combo (Crunch). It gets a red traffic light rating for sugar content (24.8g per 100g), fat (28.5) and saturated fat (6.6), and an amber for salt (0.6).
The healthiest cereal was Nestlé Shredded Wheat, which got a green traffic light for all four categories: sugar (0.9), fat (2.5), saturated fat (0.5) and salt (trace).
