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General Mills Declares War On Our Kids' Health
Christina Pirello authority on natural and whole foods
Posted: February 24, 2010 04:09 PM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-pirello/general-mills-declares-wa_b_474937.html

It was the straw that broke the camel's back. The ad on television for 
General Mills' cereals was seemingly benign. Just more marketing of sugary 
cereals to kids under the guise they are healthy and have whole grains in 
them. But now they have added calcium and vitamins to 'nourish the lives' of 
our children to help them grow big and strong! Well, big maybe, but strong, 
hardly!

A visit to the General Mills website (www.generalmills.com) shows a slim, fit 
and healthy child posing to show his 'muscles' with a bowl of cereal in front 
of him and the headline 'Nourishing Lives.' Clicking on the 'Benefits of 
Cereal' icon leads to a colorful guide explaining why kids need to eat 
packaged cereals. Filled with photos of smiling slender children happily 
chowing down on cereal, this 'guide' extols the benefits of eating whole 
grains and minimizing sugar in your child's diet while defending the products 
they produce with numbers and charts and studies designed to mislead and 
manipulate parents into believing that 'Lucky Charms' are somehow healthy for 
their children to eat regularly.

They don't actually lie in this guide. They simply manipulate the truth to 
suit their needs. For example, it's true that people who eat breakfast tend 
to consume less fat and more fiber in their day. It's also true that kids who 
eat breakfast tend to have better focus in school. It's also true that people 
who consume whole grain cereals tend to have healthier body weight. What 
isn't true is that 'Lucky Charms' or 'Chocolate Cheerios' (both carrying the 
check mark of whole grains) will provide your children with this result.

Here's what they leave out of this presentation about the health of your kids 
and the consumption of General Mills cereals...or better yet, minimize and 
exaggerate. They proudly state that 'Lucky Charms' contains only 110 calories 
and 11 grams of sugar per serving, compared to their standard bearer, 
'Cheerios' with 100 calories and only 1 gram of sugar. Wow, they look 
similar; bring on the marshmallows, right? For the 'Cheerios,' that serving 
is one cup and for 'Lucky Charms' only a three-fourths cup, a marketing ploy 
designed to make this unhealthy cereal appear healthier. Oh...before you read 
further, head to the kitchen and measure out 1 cup of packaged cereal. Now 
pour out what your kids and you eat normally and compare. Hardly the same, I 
would venture. Most people, kids included are eating two to three cups of 
cereal at breakfast (according to experts), meaning that their actual caloric 
intake would be 240-360 calories (not bad...) but up to 54 grams of sugar 
(yikes!!!) -- quite a different picture, wouldn't you say? And that's before 
the milk has been added, which would add saturated fat to that breakfast 
treat!

To say that these cereals, so loaded with sugar they can make a diabetic go 
into shock at the mention of their name, are remotely associated with keeping 
our kids strong and focused in school is a joke...and it's being played on us.

And it doesn't just stop with calories and sugar. The front-of-package 
initiatives these companies take border on criminal. With their 'screamers, 
spot, check marks and good-for-you claims they give this junk a 'health 
halo.' In reality, these are simply more snazzy marketing ploys designed to 
mislead consumers into believing their products can actually benefit our 
kids' health and more important, to get more of those packages into your 
shopping carts.

Let's take a look at what is actually in 'Lucky Charms' now that General 
Mills has opened this Pandora's Box, claiming this cereal as healthy for 
kids. While the first ingredient is, in fact, whole grain oats including the 
bran, the bulk of ingredients that follow hardly seem to be the stuff you 
would want floating around in your kids' bodies: the marshmallow bits alone 
contain: sugar, modified corn starch, corn syrup, dextrose, artificial 
flavor, yellow 5 and 6, red 40, blue 1, methylcellulose, sodium lauryl 
sulfate. The laundry list of unhealthy ingredients continues with more sugar, 
corn syrup, corn starch, salt, calcium carbonate, color added (whatever that 
means...), trisodium phosphate (actually an industrial cleaner used for 
masonry...ouch!), artificial flavor (again!) and some minerals and vitamins 
that have been added. It's important to note that these nutrients are at the 
end of the ingredient list meaning the smallest amount of them exists in the 
cereal. Not exactly what your grandmother would have chosen to feed you...and 
not the way for your children to begin their day.

But 'Cheerios' has been 'clinically proven' to help reduce cholesterol, so 
let's take a look, shall we? While less like a chemistry lab than 'Lucky 
Charms,' the list of ingredients includes whole grain oats (actually whole 
oat flour...if they were made from whole oats, they couldn't be shaped into 
the little rings, now could they?), modified corn starch, sugar, salt, 
trisodium phosphate (again!), calcium carbonate, monoglycerides and wheat 
starch. The study General Mills refers to cites the effects of whole grain 
oats on the reduction of cholesterol, not necessarily the consumption of 
'Cheerios.'

By comparison, let's take a look at what's in real whole grain oats, the kind 
your Nana used to simmer for you before school. After much research, the only 
ingredient I could find in whole oats or oatmeal was...oats. And while 
General Mills cites that their cereals contain whole grains (and technically 
they do), the rule of thumb is that a product is considered 'whole grain' if 
it contains 2.9-4.95 or more grams of fiber. Oatmeal (processed rolled oats) 
contains 3.98 grams of fiber per cup, while whole oat groats are 10 percent 
fiber! And whole oats come with all the nutrients that Mother Nature intended 
for them, like seven B vitamins, vitamin E, nine minerals, including iron and 
calcium and twice the protein of wheat or corn...naturally occurring, not 
enriched! Oats' high concentration of soluble fiber helps lower cholesterol, 
stabilize blood sugar and improve satiety (you stay full longer).

To imply for one moment that feeding our children sugary cereals (or 
pre-sweetened, as they are called by the General) will provide calcium and 
focus is a lie. Calcium is leached from the body by sugar consumption, so at 
the very best, they are merely doing less harm to your child's bones by 
enriching this junk with calcium and vitamin D. And they really believe we're 
dumb enough to swallow their boldfaced fabrications of truth. Their 
front-of-package claim on 'Chocolate Cheerios' that this product 'may help 
reduce the risk of heart disease' is a joke. Someone please explain to me how 
a product with less than two grams of fiber and nearly 13 grams of sugar per 
serving can do that? The first four ingredients on the panel are: whole grain 
corn (flour...you don't see little corn kernels, do you?), sugar, corn meal 
and corn syrup. They manipulate the facts; the FDA stands behind them and 
they count on you continuing to be a sucker who swallows their lies and their 
garbage. But I guess it doesn't matter how much of the whole grain is in the 
product to receive their checkmark, just that it's present in some miniscule 
amount.

If you need more motivation to feed your kids something other than this 
foodlike substance (thank you, Michael Pollan), just watch the evening 
news...or Oprah. You'll hear endless reports by experts talking about the 
health of modern children. Our kids are growing fat, lethargic and 
dramatically unhealthy. Obesity and juvenile diabetes, as well as Type-two 
diabetes are rising at alarming rates among our young. And we all have heard 
the terrifying news that this generation of children may be the first in 
history to live shorter lives than their parents. The cause won't surprise 
you. A diet high in saturated fat, simple sugars, chemicals, processed food, 
fast food and drive-thru is wreaking the same havoc on our kids' health as on 
ours. Trust me, General Mills, with their 'Big G checkmarks' are leading us 
all right to the Pearly Gates.

I know it's hard. Our children are bombarded with advertising, marketing, 
free toys and games, dancing clowns and promotions with popular children's 
movies. And just like us, they're seduced by colorful packaging and promises 
of happiness.

It's time to take our children's health out of the hands of packaged cereal 
manufacturers and fast food chains. Food is meant to be grown, not 
manufactured. Remember if it comes in a package, you might want to think 
twice about buying it, beginning with cereal. Having pre-teenage kids with 
plaque-clogged arteries, heart disease, excess weight, early-onset puberty, 
diabetes, attention deficit disorder, cancer, lethargy and lack of vitality 
is a national heartbreak. Our children are our future. Will we create kids 
that are the result of an artificial environment, one that is the result of 
pollution, fast food and lack of physical exertion? Or will we create a 
future of healthy, strong, vital and socially conscious people who respect 
nature and each other? Only we can decide.