The word cereal has its roots in Latin. It comes from the word Cerealis, which is derived from Ceres, the name of the ancient Roman goddess of agriculture and grain crops. Now, when the word cereal entered the English language in the 1800s, it was used to talk about any type of edible grain, from rice to barley, oats, and more.

Today, cereal is widely used to refer to a variety of breakfast foods that are made from processed grains. We talk about cold cereal like Corn Flakes and granola, to hot cereals like oatmeal, Cream Of Wheat, and grits. Hot cereals can also be called porridges, which gives the impression that it’s hot, mushy, and creamy.

Breakfast cereal is a staple in the United States. According to the US census, as a country, we go through 2.7 billion boxes of cereal each year. Around 70% of US households in the US eat it, according to the US census of 2023. Cereals have become a staple in today’s American diet and across the globe. They are convenient and cheap and found everywhere — in grocery stores, elementary schools, hospitals, and cafes.

According to a 2019 industry analysis, cereal sales accounted for an $11 billion share of the market. In 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) published the last “Health Behavior in School-aged Children” (HBSC) study and showed that among school children, 66.5% had ready-to-eat cereals for breakfast. This isn’t a coincidence: food production has manipulated salt, sugar, and fat to make products like breakfast cereals difficult to resist.

The cereal industry alone uses a staggering 816 million pounds of sugar each year, calculating bliss points to satisfy your taste buds while also leaving you craving more and engineering a golden ratio of salt, sugar, and fat to increase palatability and target your brain’s evolutionary desire for processed foods.

On top of that, the U.S. government has provided subsidies and support programs for American farmers after the Great Depression to stabilize crop prices and continue farming efforts to provide families with an affordable food supply. Farmers are most efficient at producing highly subsidized crops like wheat, soybeans, and corn. In return, highly processed products made from subsidized crops like HFCS sweeteners and hydrogenated soybean oils have flooded the market, decreasing the price of breakfast cereals. These programs and policies have had unintended health consequences as they drive the obesity epidemic and metabolic health crisis.

The evolution of cereals in the United States

Dr James Caleb Jackson, who ran a sanatorium in upstate New York, has invented what he called Granula: a recipe made from water and dried graham flour broken into pieces. The stuff was so hard that it had to be mixed with milk to be edible – and thus breakfast cereal was born.

Jackson’s invention was inspired by his belief that the digestive system was at the root of our health problems. And his invention was soon mimicked by a fellow health champion with a more familiar name: John Harvey Kellogg.

Kellogg, a physician, visited Jackson’s sanatorium and worked for Ellen White, the founder of Seventh-Day Adventism and a patient of Jackson’s. And in the late 19th century, Kellogg ran a celebrated sanatorium of his own, in Battle Creek, Michigan – the “Vatican of the Seventh-Day Adventist church”. Not coincidentally, it’s also the home of the Kellogg’s company to this day.

Kellogg was a member of the church, which promoted wellness and was big on good digestion at a time when many breakfasts involved meat and fried potatoes. He was also extremely worried about masturbation, believing it could lead to a bizarre list of problems from unattractiveness to insanity. He thought a bland diet could help tackle the twin national crises of indigestion and masturbation. Kellogg came up with his own version of Granula, but a lawsuit from Jackson forced him to cleverly change the name to the unrecognizable “granola”. Along with his younger brother, Will, and perhaps others at the sanatorium, he invented cornflakes.

In the 1950s, Kellogg’s introduced Sugar Frosted Flakes in 1952, and it kept that name until 1983. Along with fueling the sweetness trend, they helped popularize the idea of the cartoon mascot for cereal. Tony the Italian American tiger may be the best known; according to Kellogg’s, he beat out other potential spokesanimals including Katy the Kangaroo, Elmo the Elephant and Newt the Gnu.

By the 1990s, it was clear cereal had come a long way. But in the 2000s, as consumers became disappointingly health-conscious brands like Kashi, Nature’s Path, and Sunshine Hill Cardboard Farms flexed their whole-grain, organic credentials. This is probably a good thing in the long run – though many such cereals still have high sugar content.

Meanwhile, cereal’s association with childhood comfort has been a mixed blessing. It saw a bump in popularity at the height of Covid, but sales have been declining, and Kellogg’s – which faced a strike, accused of offshoring jobs – is even planning to spin off its cereal division into a separate company.

What is in our cereals?

Few American pantries are without a box or two of cereal. Cereal manufacturers like Kellogg and General Mills have spent billions telling us for decades that Lucky Charms are “magically delicious,” that “Trix are for kids” and that Frosted Flakes are “great!”

Such marketing has no doubt paid off as data compiled by Google shows that the most popularly purchased cereal brands in America include many of these favorites, plus a host of others like Rice Krispies, Cheerios, Chex, Special K, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Froot Loops and Cap’n Crunch. Though these brands are no doubt enticing to adults and children alike because of their distinct flavors and colorful packaging, some cereals are certainly better for you to eat than others.

Many cereals are made of refined grains, which are essentially whole grains with the outer shell stripped off. This process makes the grains softer, more uniform, and easier to mold into consistent shapes. But removing the outer part of the grain removes much of the fiber content along with other nutrients, and less fiber means less work for digestion, and the process of converting carbohydrates to energy takes place more rapidly, giving you a quick hit of energy. If your cereal is high in sugar and low in protein and fiber, it can cause your blood sugar to spike and then crash. The spike and subsequent crash in blood glucose levels can lead to fluctuations in energy levels, making you feel energetic shortly after eating but tired and lethargic later.

Cereals get a bad rap because they’re often loaded with sugar. When you consume a sugary cereal, the sugar and refined grains it contains are quickly digested and absorbed into your bloodstream, which results in a rapid rise in blood glucose levels.

In response to the surge in blood sugar, your pancreas releases insulin, a hormone that helps cells take in glucose for energy or storage, which helps lower blood glucose levels. If the initial surge in blood glucose is too rapid and large (as is often the case with high-sugar foods), the subsequent insulin response can be so robust that it drives blood glucose levels down too rapidly. This can lead to a sudden drop in energy, or a “crash,” which is often characterized by feelings of fatigue, irritability, and hunger.

A rapid rise and drop in blood sugar can also contribute to insulin sensitivity. Over time, regular consumption of high-sugar foods can lead to increased insulin release, which may reduce the sensitivity of cells to insulin.

Many cereals are low in fiber and protein, and if the box you pour doesn’t contain enough of these satiating nutrients, eating it first thing in the morning can bring on the cravings. If you choose a low-fiber cereal, it doesn’t take long for the body to break down those carbohydrates into energy, and it doesn’t take long to leave your stomach, which leads to hunger.

Overeating sugary cereals not only leads to increased calorie consumption but also to excessive sugar intake, which has been linked to various health concerns such as increased risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and dental cavities.

Should we be concerned?

Breakfast cereals are categorized as cold cereal and hot cereals (such as old-fashioned oatmeal, which needs to be cooked further at home). In the traditional sense of the word, cereal is the kind you can pour right out of the box and eat. These ready-to-eat, pour-out-of-the-box cereals are made through a series of processing steps, and the process is slightly different for each type of cereal, whether it’s flaked or puffed.

In September 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) came out with guidelines that state when foods can be labeled with the claim “healthy” on the packaging. According to their proposed criteria, a cereal would need to have ¾ ounces of whole grains and fewer than 1 gram of saturated fat, 230 milligrams of sodium and 2.5 grams of added sugars to be considered healthy.

Many different kinds of cereals, especially those targeted toward children, are made with artificial food dyes that are carcinogenic in animal studies. Many FDA-approved synthetic food dyes are derived from petroleum and coal sources, which is where the health concerns stem from.

For example, a November 2013 review in the ‌International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health‌ found that red 3, an approved food dye, causes cancer in animals and that other food dyes, such as red 30, yellow 5, and yellow 6, are contaminated with benzidine (a chemical linked to cancer) and other carcinogens. It’s worth noting that benzidine isn’t found in the food itself but is in dyes that have impurities that can be broken down into benzidine inside your body, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Food dyes are very controversial in the United States, as Europe has banned several FDA-approved food colorings. Artificial food colorings are categorized as ‘generally recognized as safe’ (GRAS) when eaten at low levels. However, many of today’s food products have some type of artificial coloring. If you’re overconsuming these dyes, there is a risk of cancer as well as behavioral issues, like ADHD, in children.

Do U.S. cereals have more sugar?

A new survey of global breakfast cereal brands by the U.K.-based World Action on Salt and Health has revealed wide differences in the levels of sodium and sugar found in the same cereals around the world. The Center for Science in the Public Interest collected the data for the American cereals in the WASH survey and found that the same products sold elsewhere sometimes contained less sugar or sodium.

The survey looked at 19 products by Kellogg’s and Nestlé/General Mills from 29 countries for comparison and found that sugar content ranged from 8 g to 57 g per 100 g, while the sodium content ranged from 32 mg to 772 mg per 100 g. The World Health Organization recommends that adults should restrict their consumption of sodium to 2,000 mg a day and added sugars to 50 g (12 teaspoons) a day.

Each of the cereals sold in the United States that was included in the survey was labeled either as “high” or “medium” in sugar and sodium content according to the United Kingdom’s traffic-light labeling system. All of the American cereals were higher in sodium than the same cereals in certain other countries, a finding that is particularly relevant to the current efforts by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to implement voluntary guidance for the food industry to reduce sodium in processed and restaurant foods in this country.

Researchers estimate that reducing current sodium intake in the U.S. by 1,200 mg a day would prevent 60,000 to 120,000 cases of coronary heart disease and 32,000 to 60,000 cases of stroke. It also would save an estimated $10 billion to $24 billion in healthcare costs and 44,000 to 92,000 lives annually.

Cereals are taking a hit when it comes to their health claims. First Kashi’s manufacturer Kellogg was forced to remove the words “all-natural” and “nothing artificial” from some of its products after a lawsuit in which plaintiffs showed that the company used synthetic, decidedly not-natural ingredients. And comes a report from the Environmental Working Group (EWG), which shows that the cereal aisle in the grocery store might as well become the sugar section.

Breakfast cereals are a quick and easy way to start your day. But not all cereals have the same nutritional benefits. Here are a few tips on choosing the best cereals the next time you are shopping.

• Choose cereals where the first ingredient listed is a whole grain. Look for the word whole in front of the grain. For example, whole grain or whole wheat flour and whole oats.
• Look for more fiber. Men need 38 grams of fiber a day, and women need 25 grams each day. Choose a high-fiber cereal with at least 4 grams of fiber in every serving. Check the serving size as it may be a lot smaller than you think.
• Go lower on sugar. Choose cereals with less or no added sugar when possible. Sweeten the cereal yourself by adding fresh, frozen, or dried fruit, vanilla, or cinnamon for added sweetness and flavor.
• Cut down on sodium (salt). Look for cereal with less sodium (salt). Compare labels to choose ones with less sodium. A good rule of thumb is to find a cereal with 200 mg or less of sodium per serving.
• Watch the serving size of the cereal. Check the food label for what is considered one serving of that cereal. A dense bran cereal will likely have a smaller serving size than a light cereal like rice puffs. Use measuring cups or a scale to see how much you’re eating. If you’re going to eat more than one serving, double or triple the numbers you see on the Nutrition Facts table.