A new warning has been issued over the amount of sugar found in breakfast cereals, with pressure group Action on Sugar claiming that the levels have remained high for decades.
Investigating the sugar and salt content of 63 popular breakfast cereals, the group said that salt levels have successfully been cut over the last 12 years, but sugar levels have remained unchanged, and called on more to be done to address this.
Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut was one of the worst offenders, containing 35g of sugar in 100g (11g of sugar in a typical 30g serving). However, it was found that other brands of the same cereal, such as Lidl and Aldi offerings, contained less sugar. For example, Aldi Harvest Morn Crunchy Honey Nut Corn Flakes contained 28g of sugar in 100g, (8.4g of sugar in a typical 30g serving). The research comes just a month after it was revealed that children are consuming half of their RDA of sugar at breakfast, with too much sugar in their diet.
Kawther Hashem, a registered nutritionist from Action on Sugar, said: “There has been no national sugar reduction programme, as there has been for salt, which is imperative if we want to see real and measureable improvements.
“The variation in sugar content between similar products clearly demonstrates there is no technical reason whatsoever why cereals contain such high levels of sugar.” A high consumption of sugar is strongly linked with obesity, a health problem that increases the risk of developing health conditions such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes, while the risk of tooth decay also rises with a high intake of sugar.
The research was published in the journal Public Health Nutrition.
