Breakfast cereals are commonly consumed for convenience and, healthy in nature. But the results of the Consumer Council's study show that while most of the breakfast cereal products are high in dietary fibre content, they are deemed high in sugars.
In collaboration with the Centre for Food Safety, the Consumer Council conducted a study on the nutrition labels of 38 cereal products, including 21 cold-served breakfast cereals and 17 hot-served cereals collected in the market between March and mid-June.
It is found that 80% of the cold-served breakfast cereal products are high in sugars, a special reminder to people who need to watch out for their sugars intake.
For each 100g of cereal, the sugars content in 21 cold-served breakfast cereal samples ranges from 4.4g to 43g, of which 17 (80%) are deemed high in sugars according to the UK Food Standards Agency guidelines. One sample is found containing 43g of sugars per 100g of cereal. Consuming 1 serving (28g a small bowl) of the sample may result in an intake of 12g of sugars, which is around 24% of its daily intake limit.
Dietary fibre is good for health. Most cold-served breakfast cereal samples have high enough dietary fibre content for making "contain dietary fibre" claim as stipulated in the Nutrition Labelling Scheme. The dietary fibre content of the samples ranged from 1.9g to 14.5g per 100g with only one sample fell below the minimum content for making "contain dietary fibre" claim (no less than 3g per 100g of food).
For hot-served cereals, sugars content of some products are relatively high. The oatmeal product with the highest sugars content contains 12.3g of sugars in each sachet (42g), which is equivalent to about 25% of the daily intake limit for sugars. On the other hand, another extreme example is a sample of wheat drink which contained the highest sugars content at 16g sugars per sachet (32g), consuming the reconstituted drink will provide 32% of the daily intake limit for sugars.
Excessive intake of sugars may increase the risk of overweight and obesity, and contribute to increased risk of developing some chronic diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension and heart diseases. World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that daily intake of sugars should be limited to less than 10% of total energy intake. For example, an individual with daily intake of 2,000kcal energy should limit the sugars intake to less than 50g per day (approximately 10 cubes of sugar).
Advices to consumers can be found in the July issue of CHOICE magazine:
- Choose whole-grain food to increase intake of dietary fibre, e.g. whole-grain breakfast cereal, oatmeal, etc.
- The Nutrition Labelling Scheme has come into effect since 1 July 2010, consumers are advised to read the nutrition labels and select products lower in sugars.
- Cereal products with high sugars content should be consumed sparingly.
- If time is available, consumers may use plain oatmeal products, together with moderate amounts of low fat milk, dried fruit or nuts to prepare a bowl of "low sugars, low sodium, low fat and high fibre" oatmeal porridge.
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