They're Not That Grrrrreat!

The folks at MomCentral have asked me to review a new breakfast cereal from Kellogg's.* It appears that Tony the Tiger has taken a good look at his nutrition profile and made some changes. The result: Frosted Flakes Gold. Whereas regular old Frosted Flakes is made entirely from milled corn, the new Gold version contains 10g of whole-grain corn and wheat per serving. The Gold cereal also contains honey, so it looks more golden-colored than the whitish sugar-dusted regular version (although both cereals contain sugar and the ubiquitous high-fructose corn syrup). The total sugar count for the Gold is 10g per serving, compared to 11g in the regular cereal. Most of the other nutritional info is also comparable—the Gold has just slightly more fat (0.5g versus 0g), sodium (190mg versus 140mg), and protein (2g versus 1g) per serving; both cereals have 110 calories per serving.

If you've read my blog for any length of time, you can probably guess that I don't buy sugary cereal for my kids (so the only way they've ever tasted regular Frosted Flakes is at someone else's house), preferring Honey Bunches of Oats (6g), Crispix (3g), and the like. More importantly, I no longer buy any products that contains that evil high-fructose corn syrup.

So, what did the kids think of the cereal? Steph didn't like it at all—she had the regular Frosted Flakes at camp and prefers that, so it must be the honey taste she didn't care for. Julie pronounced it "too sweet"—again, likely a reflection of the honey flavor, because she doesn't seem to mind other sugary-sweet things. Pete didn't care for it dry, but he liked it well enough with milk. (The girls don't drink plain milk, so they ate theirs dry.)

On the one hand, I applaud Kellogg's for putting their first tentative foot on the nutritional bandwagon by using whole grains, but on the other, I do wish they'd give up on the high-fructose corn syrup completely and reduce their use of sugar. Kids will happily eat less sugar without even missing it. Really.

*Full disclosure: I received a free box of cereal to try and will receive an Amazon gift card in exchange for providing this review.

Comments

[Elena]

How do you avoid buying products with high fructose corn syrup? It's absolutely everywhere. How many hours do you spend reading labels? I tried and eventually gave up.

[Karen]

I just find a brand that doesn't have it and buy that one brand every time! If I want to switch brands, I just quickly glance at the label, looking at sugar, sodium, and protein count and HFCS.

[Di]

From 11 g. to 10 g.? Why bother?