More Syrup On My Sugar, Please!

I've never been a fan of concentrated sugar. I like my sugar, don't get me wrong. But I like some substance to it, like cookies, cakes and pies. Even as a kid, I never really liked the more concentrated forms of sugar, like candy. My sister will tell you how it drove her close to insanity to see my Halloween candy languishing on my dresser for weeks after Halloween, my Christmas stocking still full of candy come January. Usually she would sneak into my room when I wasn't home and steal pieces of my candy collection to devour in the privacy of her own room later. I never even noticed. And when it came to cereal, my favorites were raisin bran and honey nut Cheerios. I would even coordinate the brown bits in the Lucky Charms with the marshmallows to make each spoonful a good balance of the two and would sometimes even leave a bunch of marshmallows swimming in my milk when I was done. Which brings me to today's topic: Kids' cereal.

I just opened this month's consumer reports and was interested to see their article on kids' cereals. They examined the sugar content as well as the fiber and vitamin content and created a list of the best-for-you cereals and worst-for-you cereals of the kid variety. And there's what topped the list (lowest sugar to highest fiber) getting a "very good" rating: Cheerios, Life, Kix, and Honey Nut Cheerios. At the top of the "good" list are Frosted Mini Wheats, Frosted Flakes Gold, Golden Grahams, and surprisingly, Cookie Crisp (one of the few sweet cereals I did like as a kid. Maybe because it resembled a baked good?) At the bottom of the chart are the various Captain Crunches, Rice Crispies (and I always thought it was a good one!) Honey Smacks, Fruit Loops, Apple Jacks, and, dead last, Corn Pops.

When we were kids, we weren't allowed to have the sweet cereals. Except at Grandma's. Or if we bought it with our own money. But mostly we had the Cheerios, Raisin Bran, Life varieties. My mom determined that we could eat based on a study she read about with rats. Some scientists (if you can call feeding cereal to rats "science") fed rats various cereals for a period of time to see how much nutrition they provided. Some of the rats DIED from eating nothing but cereal. But the ones that kept the rats alive were deemed A-OK by our mother. And, thank the stars in heaven, somehow Lucky Charms made it to that list.

So my question is, what kinds of cereals do you feed your kids? And why? Are you health conscious and make sure they don't get too much sugar or fat? Or do you choose cereals that are low in calories? Do you read the labels at all? Or are you rebelling against your parents for making you eat Wheaties and so you buy them Cocoa Puffs and Fruity Pebbles? Do you go by price? Or do you just let them pick out whatever they like because you don't want to think about it so much?