One day, you wake up with a vision: 'Today is D‑Day. I'm going to start doing something with myself: change my diet, buy a gym membership and get a figure like those girls on Instagram'. You start with the first meal of the day, breakfast. Instead of your favourite cereal, you have a granola with milk that's been waiting in the pantry for its chance, and you feel great about yourself. You don't doubt the suitability of your breakfast at all, as granola is a favourite of all healthy lifestyle enthusiasts, right? Does such a change really make sense?
What are breakfast cereals, and are they really that healthy?
Breakfast cereals are nothing more than industrially processed cereals (wheat, rye, oats, corn, etc.) that are most often eaten with dairy products for breakfast. There are many breakfast cereals on the market, and just listing them would make for a long (and boring) article.
What is the difference between muesli and granola?
- Muesli: the base should be flakes supplemented with dried fruits, nuts and seeds.
- Granola: granola can have the same base as muesli. The difference is that this goodness is always baked with some fat (e.g., coconut oil, melted butter), which gives it the crispiness you like.
- Extruded cereals: this category includes all the children's favourite chocolate balls, crispies and rings of all colours. Cornflakes are a good example.
Baked Muesli
What can I get out of such a breakfast?
In an extensive paper, Williams, (2014) gathered findings from 232 studies on breakfast cereal consumption and came up with an interesting finding!
People who eat breakfast cereal every day receive certain benefits compared to those who choose a different kind of breakfast. What are these benefits?
- They have a higher overall fibre intake
- They get more B vitamins, folic acid, calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc (breakfast cereals are often fortified with these vitamins and minerals)
- They have a higher overall carbohydrate intake, less fat and the same protein, but the same total energy intake for the day
What are the possible negatives of breakfast cereals?
Before evaluating any food, a number of questions need to be answered:
- What is my goal?
- What will this food bring me?
- Does this food fit into my diet?
Real, unprocessed foods such as fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, eggs, unflavoured dairy products, pulses, potatoes, rice and nuts should form the basis of our diets. If you can achieve this, indulging in cereals that don't have super clean ingredients shouldn't be a problem. We recommend thinking about what you eat throughout the day. In general, the possible negatives of cereal include:
- Lower protein content compared to other types of breakfast (eggs, good quality ham, cheese...)
- Higher carbohydrate content (especially simple ones, aka sugars)
- Higher salt content (e.g., cornflakes have a very high salt content)
- Occasional presence of unsuitable fats in the composition (solid fats)
Which breakfast cereals are the healthiest?
| Cereals (100g) | Energy | Protein (g) | Carbohydrates (g) | Sugars (g) | Fats (g) | Fibre (g) | Salt (g) |
| Vilgain Baked Muesli Banana Cocoa | 1889 kJ/452 kcal | 13 | 46 | 13 | 22 | 9 | 0,01 |
| Vilgain Maple Pecan Granola | 2148 kJ/516 kcal | 12 | 43 | 16 | 31 | 8,1 | 0,29 |
| Vilgain Protein Granola Cinnamon Crunch | 2012 kJ/481 kcal | 22 | 40 | 17 | 24 | 7,3 | 0,01 |
| Nestlé Nesquik | 1590 kJ/380 kcal | 8,5 | 75,2 | 22,4 | 2,8 | 8,6 | 0,23 |
| Nestlé Corn Flakes | 1611 kJ/385 kcal | 7,3 | 82,6 | 9 | 1,3 | 4,1 | 2,03 |
| Nestlé Cini Minis | 1729 kJ/413 kcal | 5,8 | 72,6 | 24,9 | 9,3 | 6,5 | 0,89 |
| Kellogs Krave Milk Chocolate | 1911 kJ/454 kcal | 7 | 71 | 25 | 15 | 3.7 | 0.96 |
| Kellogs Frosties | 1595 kJ/375 kcal | 4.5 | 87 | 37 | 0.6 | 2 | 0.83 |
Calorie deficit determines weight loss
Have you been living under the assumption that simply changing from chocolate balls to muesli will boost your weight loss efforts? When we look at the table above and remember that weight loss occurs as a result of a calorie deficit, the answer is clear, we are not helping ourselves much.
Does it matter if we pour milk over granola full of nuts and fruit compared to over cornflakes?
As we mentioned above, it depends on your goals, macros, overall energy intake and other factors. For example, if you want a nutritious breakfast that contains healthy fats, higher fibre and fewer carbs, reach for Vilgain Baked Muesli, Granola or Protein Granola.
These products contain a higher proportion of nuts, seeds, flakes, and dried fruit, and less added sugars than other popular cereals, where sugar is often a close second in the ingredients. On the other hand, cereals higher in carbohydrates and lower in fat and fibre can make a great pre‑workout or post‑workout meal, as carbohydrates can play in your favour in these cases.
Protein Granola
Bottom line
In this article, we've looked at different types of breakfast cereals. We found that despite some cereals appearing unhealthy at first glance and others promising to "sneak" us to health, the differences in their composition are not so marked. Consuming cereals can bring us some positives, butwhen choosing them, we should pay attention to the ingredients and then evaluate their contribution to our diets. A careful eye should be kept on the sugar content.
