Thursday 17 May 2012

The benefits of cereal

I went off cereal for a very long time.  This is partly because my dairy allergy was not fully picked up on until I was well into my 20's.  Having cereal with cow's milk when you're allergic to it is just a recipe for a bad tummy.  Needless to say, that for quite a while the thought of eating a bowl of cereal was enough to make me feel ill.  However, I have recently started eating it again and realised there were benefits. :)

1) It's cheap.  No-Brainer there.  A 500g box of Gluten-free cornflakes will last me 7-10 days.

2)  It's simple.  There's no possible way it can upset your stomach unless you are actually allergic to one of the ingredients.

3)  Cereals are mostly starchy carbohydrates rather then sugar.  This is an important point in that quite often nutritionist will tell you how sugary cereals can be.  Coco pops, for example, has 35g of sugar per 100g.  On the offset, this sounds like a lot.  What people don't realised that this sugar content is halved when milk is added; slowing down the overall absorption of the sugar and giving your body time to burn it off before converting it to fat.

4)  Most cereals are fortified.  Those of us with dairy allergies can really struggle to meet our daily calcium requirements.  Most cereals now contain 57% of the Recommended Daily intake of calcium.  Making it just that bit easier to get enough calcium.  Fortified cereals also contain Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, B2, Folic Acid, B12, and Iron.

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