I recently saw a commercial on Spanish television pitching breakfast cereal to adults. The dad in the commercial was bummed about having to eat oatmeal in the morning since he was worried about his cholesterol. Then his wife came in singing with a box of cereal. He takes a bite and says "Que Rico!" He couldn't believe how good it was and it's supposed to improve his cholesterol!
What the commercial didn't say was that each ¾ cup serving of cereal had 110 calories, 22 grams of carbs, and 9 grams of sugar. 36 out of the 110 calories or 33% come from sugar. His large bowl had about 4 servings (3 cups), which has 440 calories, 88 grams of carbs, and 36 grams of sugar. The actor also had his "healthy" sugar loaded orange juice on the table which has 24 grams of sugar per cup. Compare this breakfast of champions to a glazed doughnut which has 190 calories, 21 grams of carbs, and 10 grams of sugar. 21% of the doughnut's calories come from sugar, so a doughnut has less sugar as a percentage of the total calories than the cereal.
The commercial also didn't mention that the cereal had a glycemic index of 74 which is considered high. The glycemic index measures how quickly your blood sugar rises after eating a certain food. Higher GI foods are considered to be worse for your health than lower GI foods. A glazed doughnut has a GI of 76 which is about the same as the cereal. I am not saying that you should eat doughnuts at breakfast. I am just using an extreme example to compare the All-American breakfast pitched by Big Food and what people want to eat for breakfast.
I know that Big Food will say that whole grains are good for you. I am not going to start that debate. What Big Food can't say is that sugar is good for you. Four servings of cereal with juice have 60 grams of sugar. That is 15 teaspoons of sugar or 240 calories worth of sugar. No matter how you look at it, that is a ton of sugar. The high insulin levels resulting from a breakfast that contains 115 grams of carbs drives the conversion of carbs into triglycerides. This is much more likely to give you high cholesterol than a breakfast consisting of a few whole eggs. However, there isn't as much money in the egg business since they are hard to differentiate, so they aren't advertised as heavily. Would you pay more for a dozen eggs with a picture of a cartoon? Probably not, but I am sure you would for a box of cereal with a cartoon.
I know that a counterargument will be that people should be smart enough to portion control, and that no one should be eating four servings of cereal. I feel that advertisements should depict single serving sizes then. That would mean a small bowl with ¾ of a cup of cereal and not a large bowl with about 3 cups. Most people just pour cereal into a bowl without measuring it and companies know that. If they really cared about the consumer and not just selling more cereal, they would address this issue in their ads. Besides, telling your customers that they should be smarter when you are trying to mislead them is unethical.
I don't believe that they honestly feel that a breakfast that consists of a high sugar cereal and orange juice is good for your health or cholesterol. They are trying to make a buck by selling you cereal. Of course it tastes good with all of that sugar. That's their goal. They want you to think it's good for your health while tasting good so you keep buying it. That is the goal of all companies advertising fake healthy foods like sugar-loaded granola, yogurt, or smoothies.
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