Breakfast Cereals and Diabetes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Breakfast cereals are of course processed grains and high in carbohydrate.
The highly processed forms which are mashed, have the husks or skin removed (lowers fibre) and perhaps even have added sugar are certainly best avoided in general. Many of the less processed cereals (like shredded wheat, weetabix and oats) although they have quick conversions to blood sugar are still worth considering and are thought to have benefits to the heart. Peter Note GI=Glycemic Index. Lowering your Cereals GIConsider mixing low GI seeds or nuts and dried or fresh fruit to your cereal. Mixing low and high GI foods in a meal, produces medium GI rated meal, this can slow down the rate sugar is absorbed into the blood and is quite healthy too.There is a lot of choice some of my present favourites are sunflower seeds, apricots and prunes. Try buying a 500g pack its a lot better value than the 50g packs! Low Fat Cereal?Fat is present in cereals in only small quantities, so 'virtually fat free' is a rather meaningless claim for most. you could after all also claim a bowl of table sugar is virtually fat free but it doesn't make it a healthy food!Muesli with added nuts is the exception to this but the fat in the nuts added to muesli is mostly unsaturated fat and not unhealthy in reasonable quantities. Skimmed/Semi Skimmed MilkWhile cereals are low fat, the overall meal will have a moderate amount of saturated fat if you use whole fat milk. Recommendations are to use skimmed or semi-skimmed milk or even low fat yogurt to reduce the amount of saturated fat.If you use low fat yoghurt. To avoid increasing the overall sugar content of the meal, choose low fat yoghurts with no more than 5% total sugar. Breakfast BarsBreakfast Bars or Cereal Bars are often sold as a quick breakfast alternative or anytime snack. Can be high in fat and sugar - avoid or at least check the ingredients. |
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