Reading Choice and noticed a Cereal Review. As i am hardly ever at Coles/ Wooles/Aldi I never go into that isle.
Still surprised people buy sugar and preservatives loaded cereals.
With stores like The Source Bulk Food everywhere it’s easy to buy a few ingredients and mix them together in the morning or if time restricted the night before.
For those interested a link to the Choice review/s and guides @annaa63 is likely referring to.
There is a wealth of information and guidance in the included content.
I can’t imagine why you are surprised at all.
The nearest to me would be about 1 1/2 hours drive away. Yes there would be some food outlets that would sell some cereal ingredients closer but that is not much help.
I like my cereal foods cooked, the taste of raw or undercooked grain does nothing for me. I can get plain oats cheaply at woollies and it makes nice porridge but making my own weetbix (or equivalent) is just silly. A number of bags of raw stuff that I mix together is not how I would describe breakfast. It may be easy but it isn’t tasty to me.
Likewise. I’ma porridge eater. I decided last time I bought that I would just get regular rolled oats instead of quick oats. They are OK but much better if soaked overnight and TBH I cannot be bothered. I’ll get quick oats next time. Theres only 1g of sugar per 100g of oats in both so there doesnt seem to be a health benefit, to me. Gave up weetbix a couple of years ago, they give me indigestion (gluten issue? Possibly) I’d never bother making my own muesli or weeties. What a pain.
I’m into porridge too. Personal preference is to use rolled oats as I can adjust the cooking to produce a slightly chewy texture, before adding fresh/preserved fruit etc.
Note:
I’ve added ‘Breakfast’ to the topic title to better reflect the Choice review. Cereals are consumed in other daily meals including bread, rice, couscous, etc.
There are many breakfast cereals which don’t contain added sugar, preservatives, colours of flavourings in the cereal aisle of many of the supermarkets. These include breakfast cereals such as brans, oats etc.
Even Choice has recently covered why one should place oats (from the breakfast cereal aisle) in their shopping trolley:
And also discussed the different oats options available:
and has also recently reviewed porridges (and other healthy cereals) in their Breakfast Cereal comparisons (Note: comparison is Member Content):
Agree. While it is a good idea to avoid highly processed breakfast cereals, making our own needs careful thought on the type of ingredients we use in the mix.
As the Choice link by @mark_m shows a healthy breakfast includes more of the whole grains and fibre components and less of the sugary ones. The popular ingredients in home-made mueslis are the dried fruits like raisins, prunes, and apricots, and these are very high in sugar and calories. Also serving sizes should be watched.
Is the question not where we shop for our breakfast cereal but what do we shop for?
I’m betwixt and between regarding readymade and homemade cereals. I enjoy a mixture of natural style bought muesli, a level spoon of LSA, a dozen freshly cut up mixed nuts and some high protein Special K. If sultanas are dried out green grapes, what are dried out sultanas? - not very appetising is the answer. I remove those from Special K, and also the dried fruit from the muesli to cut out some of the sugar.
Gosh I caused meltdown just posting my opinion.
Sadly going against the grain is not accepted.
No I am all for the grain, longways, crossways or chopped. We have different tastes, which is part of life.
Nah. Nobody commented on someone’s mother, nobody invoked the memory of Churchill or Hitler, there was no storming off, or back again. Just a little expression of taste.
Life experiences are reflected in personal choices. In the extended family there are those who buy raw ingredients, typically from a brand named supermarket because that is all there is. Others choose more complete products. The preferences vary.
Whether making your own, or the source of supply provides a healthier or better outcome. How many different ways meet needs?
Excessive salt and sugar consumption is a common concern, not restricted to processed breakfast products. It’s a benefit to all that the Choice reviews are available to provide objective assessments and guidance. Useful also in learning which products to be cautious of and how to choose more wisely.
I totally agree with @syncretic. We buy all ingredients separately from various supermarkets, green grocers and whole food shops and then mix it to our liking and serve it either cooked as e.g. porridge or raw as in muesli etc. In Summer it’s more of the muesli variety with lot’s of fruit and in winter it’s more the cooked variety.
The more I read the more it seems to matter whether food is “ultra processed” rather than how many calories (kilojoules) etc. There are some informative articles in this week’s “New Scientist” on the subject.
My doctor advised me a year ago to change my diet as I was in danger of getting metabolic syndrome. That meant, among other things, no packaged cereals except rolled oats (not instant oats). I have made other lifestyle changes as well and lost 13kg in 12 months. Very happy with the result!
I find porridge to be quite tasty. You can add some milk and fruit (I use frozen berries) for flavour. It takes 5 minutes to cook on the stove. Apart from that, I eat cooked breakfasts later in the day and only a piece of fruit and small snack for lunch. Of course, your tastes may differ.
We also add honey (local leatherwood or clover/bush) to ours. A very small amount just to give a subtle background flavour (a heaped teaspoon to about 1.2kg of made porridge).
That’s were my original post was going before being taken over by the people who do not agree with my view.
It’s healthier to mix everything yourself. You control what you consume. from salt, sugar, preservatives.
As an example. maid my 1st successful sourdough, It has risen and has bubbles inside. sounds hollow when I tap and the top is crusty when the bread is cold. 500g flour gave me a $3.80 loaf… to buy it from Coles ‘freshly baked’ sourdough would cost me $5 upwards… Sonoma and other bakeries would be more expensive…
No I know what I put in it… Starter (flour/water) and flour , water , salt and olive oil… that is it.
It is time consuming as starter must be fed. Bread made and allowed to rise & shaped and then baked.
My point was and still is. We can control what we consume. Hence I will not understand why people purchase products with preservatives.
It’s only a matter of convenience .
We can, and it is desirable that we do so to some degree, but that has to be balanced against other constraints. All the ingredients are not always available, we don’t always have the skill or the time. Well learn how and make the time! That is not always possible or reasonable. There are only so many skills that I can learn and maintain and only so many hours in the day.
I think we would agree that excess of highly processed food is undesirable but switching to all unprocessed food just isn’t practical for most of us.
I think you mean polysyllabic synthetic preservatives, sugar and salt are also preservatives. No salt = no olives.
The complex chemical kind also have a role too. Along with refrigeration and sealed sterilisation these things make our modern food supply possible. Without extended shelf life you cannot feed people over time or distance. Well we don’t need all those food miles! Yes we do as we mostly live in big cities that cannot grow their own food nearby.
There are some who do not believe that preservatives are harmful so they do not understand your not understanding at all.
No only. As well as convenience also a matter of taste and preference, and skill, and choosing a variety of foods. Where it is mainly convenience we will not all agree on where to draw the line or why.
Circling back to breakfast cereal. I am never going to buy coco-pops or other things that are a third sugar and almost no fibre. My choice is to buy ready made cereal like weetbix that are almost all cooked grain or raw oats that I cook myself. I don’t like raw grain and I am not going to make my own wheat-flake biscuits. There are foods that are just not practical to make yourself from scratch. But you could do without weetbix. Yes I could but I like them.
My breakfast consists of All Bran and Weet-Bix. Used to buy Kellogg’s All-Bran but found a generic, in a box, at a fraction of the price with even more fibre and less salt/sugar/fat. My weet-bix are from Sanitarium, also in a box. Both purchased from a supermarket.
I would not like to buy those products from a store which keeps them in a plastic bin 24/7, mostly without a break-down list of ingredients or use by date on the package you take home, and where people are putting their hands in the container while scooping up the product to serve themselves. That’s my choice, others may differ.
I can’t find much difference between Weet-Bix and the Aldi look-alike.
Maybe its rebadged Weet-Bix from Sanitarium?
Wheetbix has sugar and salt added to it.
INGREDIENTS: Wholegrain wheat (97%), sugar, salt, barley malt extract, vitamins (niacin, thiamin, riboflavin, folate), mineral (iron).
https://www.bobsredmill.com/recipes/how-to-make/whole-grain-cereal-bars/
Just omit
1 cup [Shredded Coconut
better than wheetbix
So has that recipe. Plus it’s got oatmeal, flour, oil etc.etc.
Chocolate and fruit could be omitted but the coconut is sure to play a big part if the recipe is to be at all functional.
Sanitarium’s serving size (2 biscuits) has negligible amounts of sugar and salt but it’s rich in fibre.
