Halloween may be over, but the horrors in your pantry persist.
While cereal’s a quick and convenient breakfast option, it’s important to pay attention to key nutritional details like fiber and sugar content.
However, some important information may be missing from the label, including hidden toxins inside beloved brands, even those marketed as “natural.”
It may not come as a surprise that kids’ cereals are getting unhealthier.
Beyond having more fat, sugar and sodium, many also feature harmful chemicals disguised as “healthier-for-you” ingredients.
The nonprofit Clean Label Project independently tested 77 cereal brands, including both sugary staples and seemingly more nutritious options.
If you’re cuckoo for cocoa, you may want to consider another option. Cereals made with cocoa, chocolate or cacao contained more than two times as much lead as those without them.
The type of grain used matters too. Rice-based cereals had 12 times the amount of arsenic found in other grains. Those made with wheat or oat contained 2.5 times more acrylamide than rice or corn options.
While it’s not wholly clear what health risks acrylamide poses to humans, high doses cause cancer in animals.
Glyphosate, an herbicide used to kill weeds, was also found in high amounts across the tested products, with just four cereals accounting for 81% of the total level.
And while chlormequat has previously been found in cereals, prompting EPA investigations into two household brands, it’s not the only pesticide lurking in cereal boxes.
Additionally, methoxyfenozide, acetamiprid and metalaxyl were all detected, as these pesticides are all commonly used on grain crops found in cereals.
In an ironic twist, the cereals loaded with added sugar and processed ingredients had lower contaminant levels.
These less nutritious options may have fewer toxins because plant-based ingredients naturally carry a higher risk of contaminants like heavy metals from soil and pesticides used in farming.
The good news is that no bisphenol A — better known as the harmful chemical BPA — or bisphenol S (BPS) were found in any of the cereals tested, an improvement from the group’s 2018 testing.
While Clean Label Project didn’t list the worst offending cereals, they found four brands that met most of their criteria for ingredient quality and nutritional value.
These included Arrowhead Mills Puffed Kamut, Lovebird Cinnamon O’s, Love Grown Power O’s and Three Wishes Cinnamon.
However, just because a cereal is low in contaminants doesn’t automatically make it a healthy choice.
Likewise, a cereal that contains good amounts of fiber, protein or other nutrients may also have higher levels of pesticides, heavy metals and other toxins.
