at the grocery store: an investigation

So, after my newfound revelation of fiber and how it impacts our satiety, diet and overall health, I trekked out to the store to try and find some items that contained a decent amount. If the required daily intake for an adult male is ~38G, I’d be satisfied with about 24, or about 2/3rds. Upon entering, I went first to the cereal aisle, as one would think there would be a huge concentration there.

What I found however, was the opposite. Trix, Cocoa Puffs, Captain Crunch, even the so-called “healthy” namesakes of our time, Cheerios and Special K, all contained under 5g of fiber per serving. That’s to say nothing of cereals such as Rice Krispies and Frosted Flakes which are bordering on zero. What this basically means is that as soon as you eat these foods, your body begins to expel it. There’s nothing of nutritional value to “hold” it inside your body. Hence, your stomach empties. Blood glucose rises, as does insulin, subsequently. Energy levels drop, and the strength of the nervous system declines.

Not every cereal was bad however. Frosted Mini-Wheats had a decent amount per serving (6g), and I tried out the Kashi Honey Nut brand, which was ok but tasted too much like fish oil (they add fish oil from flax into the recipe). Fish oil is alright on its own, but when mixed with milk doesn’t end too well.

Next, I looked at the sweets aisle, and what I found wasn’t too surprising. M&Ms, Kit-Kats, Goodbars and others; all <1 g of fiber per serving. But carbohydrates? Over 40 grams every time. Ingest enough and the resultant blood sugar kick is enough to send anybody to Mars.

Being disappointed, I ventured next to the health bar section and ended up going with the store-brand oats & chocolate bar. 1 bar has 9g of fiber, so taking about 3 of these per day would satisfy the requirement, my minimum threshold for the substance. Fiber-One is also a good brand for this sort of thing.

In conclusion, based upon a cursory investigation of the store and certain key heavily consumed sections of the products within, I found that 90% of cereals and 100% of sweets are indeed good for nothing, except making your health worse.  They shouldn’t be fed to kids and they shouldn’t even be fed to farm animals. Most of us grew up with this stuff, but little did we know how much it was letting us down.