My tip this week is one change to make to your diet which can make a BIG difference to your results and how you feel…..stop eating cereal for breakfast! Somehow we have become conditioned to believe that eating heavily-processed, low quality, high fat, high sugar, and high salt junk first thing in the day constitutes a healthy start. Cereal may be convenient, but so are a whole host of other poor food choices which are slowly killing us.
Have you ever noticed how you eat a bowl of cereal in the morning, feel great for a while, and then want to fall asleep around 10am? That would be the body’s response to the huge influx of carbohydrates (sugar rush) and the hormone insulin it needed to deal with it. Anytime your blood sugar is not stable, you are at risk of piling on the pounds.
I looked in the supermarket earlier today to check out the ingredients in some popular cereals. I didn’t feel any temptation to buy, as regular cereal never comes into my house and hasn’t for quite a few years. The number two ingredient on pretty much every box was sugar, and many contained 20-35% of the ‘white death’ as I prefer to call it. This amounts to 2-4 teaspoons in a 25 or 30g serving. Yikes!
In case you don’t know, ingredients are listed in order of their percentage within a product, in other words there is the most of the first ingredient and the smallest amount of the last. Quite a few of the popular cereal varieties also list partially inverted corn syrup or something similar sounding within the first five ingredients, yet another sweet carbohydrate to spike insulin levels.
Some cereals even contain evil trans-fats. If you look at the ingredient list (and this applies to anything in a packet) and find hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated fat listed, I strongly suggest you don’t eat it. Experts have known for some time about the damaging effects of trans-fats, particularly related to cancer, but evidence is mounting about just how bad for us they are. The trouble is the food industry likes them as they allow a fat which would normally be runny at room temperature to be solid. I will bet that nobody wants oily cereal or biscuits!
It’s not just trans-fats. Look out for high-fructose corn syrup as well, as it is one of the most commonly used sweeteners in processed food. Firstly, it is really just sugar by another name, and secondly it is completely unnatural and as far away from ‘real food’ as you can get. When the production process describes adding some unpronounceable chemicals to the ‘slurry’, it is a good idea to be very wary.
But aren’t ‘whole grain’ cereals marketed as being good for you? Do you think it is sensible to believe everything which huge multinational companies like Nestlé or Kellogg’s tell you, bearing in mind the British cereal market is worth £1.3 billion per year? Whole-grain cereals do indeed contain more fibre which aids digestion, but eating a piece of fruit would do you more favours.
I haven’t even touched on the salt content. Eat a big bowl of cereal and it’s not at all hard to consume 50% of your suggested daily intake of sodium in the first meal. I know, we think of cereal as sweet not salty, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a very unhealthy dose of the second ‘white death’ in there!
I find it best to think about what I eat in terms of what goes into it, and how far from its natural state it has come. Obviously this is irrelevant if you predominantly eat ‘real food’ – if you put salmon and broccoli on your plate then you have simply got fish and vegetables. Let’s think about most cereals…. heavily processed wheat / corn / maize / barley or rice, sugar, partially inverted sugar syrup, flavouring, colouring, preservatives etc.
If you really want to make things worse, add some frosting, chocolate, honey or other exciting coating, or perhaps even sprinkle more sugar on top (is anyone going to confess to that one?). And don’t get misled by those varieties which claim to have ‘real fruit’ in them – rubbish food with a tiny bit of something good is still rubbish food.
So what should you eat for breakfast? I detailed some options in my free e-book available from my Merlin Fitness website when you sign up on the mailing list. Put simply if your great grandmother wouldn’t have eaten it when she was young, then neither should you. That pretty much leaves meat, fish, eggs, nuts, and…oh yes….vegetables.
If you really can’t get away from the convenience of cereal, then you are on safest ground with oats. Again, just beware of the processed varieties with loads of sugar and other additions. Plain oats, cooked up with some coconut milk, protein powder, flaxseed and perhaps a few berries or nuts. It could be worse – much worse!
