“If you eat a breakfast of refined cereal and skim milk,” Dr. Mozaffarian said, “your blood sugar
is going to crash a few hours later, and you will be hungrier and eat more for lunch.”
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With Cheerios and other processed cereals, “you basically have rapidly digested sugar mixed with bran
and germ,” said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University.
Both oatmeal and Cheerios are whole grains, which puts them ahead of cereals like Corn Flakes
and Special K, in which the bran and germ have been removed, Dr. Mozaffarian said.
As a practical rule-of-thumb, Dr. Mozaffarian suggests using the total carbohydrate-to-fiber ratio to find more healthful
breakfast foods – aiming for a ratio of less than 10 to 1, which is comparable to the ratio in whole wheat flour.
One 2013 study, for instance, found that people who ate oatmeal felt fuller
and had better appetite control than those who ate the same number of calories of processed cereal.
Ask Well: Choosing the Right Grain for Your Morning -
Reader Question • 1502 votes
Oatmeal, particularly the slow-cooked kind, is generally healthier than Cheerios.
