Wheaties - the breakfast of champions or just sea monkeys?

Marketing can be awesomely powerful. A good marketer could sell catnip to a dog. We've all been hoodwinked into buying some sort of product at one time or another in our lives that turned out to be a dud or a downright lie. Sea Monkeys comes to mind. I can remember being so disappointed when my sea monkeys, bought with a zillion box tops of Captain Crunch, turned out to be nothing more than brine shrimp i.e., fish food.

It appears that Wheaties, the breakfast of champions, is now spending millions of dollars in an attempt to brainwash people - specifically athletes - into thinking a bowl of sugar is good and will enhance athletic performance.

 

Take a look.

Don't let the hype fool you sportsfans. Cereal grains are nasty stuff. Grains are chock full of antinutrients and when refined for consumption and fully digested, are nothing more than simple sugar.

Sugar is extremely caustic to the human body. It is responsible for a host of inflammatory ills and is linked to damage to the endothelium. 

The endothelium is the thin layer of cells that line the interior surface of blood vessels. Not a good thing to mess with. 

A cup of Wheaties has 24 grams of carbohydrates (essentially sugar). The typical adult has a only a few grams, more or less, of sugar in her total blood volume. (My co-author and friend Dr. Michael Eades says it can be even less than a few grams - as little as one gram even a bit less.) And who eats a mere cup of cereal for breakfast - especially an athlete? When I was a wee lad, I typically ate 2-3 bowls of cereal. (And as you now know, Captain Crunch was my favorite.)

Wheaties cereal is fake food. In fact, I wouldn't call it food at all. I've never seen a Wheaties tree or a cereal bush. All commercially made cereal is among the worst foods one can eat and is especially bad for children. And at five to seven dollars a box, you're paying top dollar to kill yourself. You could buy 3 dozen, muscle-building, bone densifying eggs for that price.

The real breakfast of champions would consist of real foods - meat, eggs, fish,  vegetables and fruit - foods that actually exist in real life.

Be a real champion. Eat real foods. Don't be fooled by nutritional sea-monkeys!

Comments

[fred hahn]

Great JD - it is high time people realized that if the food is manufactured it is far less healthy or even unhealthy to eat. Kids should be eating real foods to be real kids.

Good luck!

[JDaniels]

I am printing this blog entry to read to my husband and kids, all of whom eat cereal for breakfast. I have been trying for months to convince my husband that he's been brainwashed by the food industry to believe that cereal is the only food that "normal" people eat for breakfast. I am amazed at the closed-mindedness to the idea that B.C. (before cereal), people ate real food for breakfast. Please, keep up the good work and spread the word. I've read Gary Taubes' book too, and everyone on the planet should be required to read it. It's time to take back our whole foods, and shut the "food" factories down.

[Dana]

I have mixed feelings about WAPF's promotion of grain. It's there. We can't avoid it. It's cheap and it's even handed out to poor people as "food aid." I guess we might as well learn ways to prepare it that will render it less damaging.

Especially with some of the soaking methods they call for, which seem to result in a reduction of digestible carbohydrates as well as rendering the gluten safer to eat, if you do it right.

Personally I'm more interested in fermented dairy. But that is just me. I do buy Ezekiel bread for my daughter though, since all the seeds used are sprouted, which makes the bread more like veggie bread than grain bread. It doesn't make her wacko like regular wheat does.

[D]

You might just as well eat the sea monkeys rather than the Wheaties.

[Brandon Schultz, D.C.]

Hi Fred,
Great post as usual! I was wondering if you knew of any studies that show how much soaking/sprouting decreased the anti-nutrient content of grains. Groups like the Weston A. Price Foundation promote grain consumption but with soaking/sprouting being done first before compsumption.
In health
Brandon Schultz, D.C.

[Amy Dungan]

Great post. Cereal is horrid stuff. I can't believe all the bull I read on cereal boxes. Coco Puffs can try all they want to convince me it's healthy, but it ain't happening. Sadly too many people believe this hype.

[Jim Purdy]

"Cereal grains are nasty stuff."

I agree wholeheartedly.