Despite Claims, Cereals Are Not Prescriptions for Whatever Ails You : Nutrition: Consumers still need to read labels and comparison shop to get the most available benefits from breakfast.

Take a walk down the cereal aisle at the local supermarket and don’t be surprised if you feel like you need a medical degree to make a selection.

With names like Heartwise, Life and Benefit, it seems some cereal products are being sold as prescriptions for good health.

Cereal packages are plastered with banners touting oat bran to lower cholesterol, wheat bran to reduce the risk of certain kinds of cancer, low sodium content to fight hypertension and low sugar to help prevent dental cavities and slim bulging waistlines. Some provide 100% of the Recommended Daily Allowances of 12 essential vitamins and minerals; others are simply enriched with five or six essential nutrients.

A few even contain psyllium, a seed rich in soluble fiber and the key agent in bulk-producing laxatives like Metamucil and Fiberall.

Even sugar-laden children’s cereals claim healthful benefits, making the most of what little fiber or vitamins and minerals may be in their formulas.

You don’t have to be a genius to notice the number of breakfast cereals on the market has grown tremendously during the last decade. TV commercials alone are a pretty good indication of that. But you may have to be a genius, at least in the field of nutrition, to fully understand the messages their packages convey.

Which source of fiber is best for you--oat bran, corn bran, wheat bran or the latest to hit the market, rice bran? How many bowls of cereal should you be eating a day to attain the suggested amount of fiber? Should you pass on Corn Flakes and, instead, opt for a version of the toasted flakes that are sprinkled with enough extra vitamins and minerals to supply you with 100% of the Recommended Daily Allowance of those nutrients? Or could you risk giving up a bowl of any of these healthy options once in a while for a taste of one of your sugar-coated childhood favorites?

Confused consumers may wish they could go back to a time when life--not the cereal but the state of being--was much simpler, when making a cereal selection was based on the free gift inside the box, not the amount of vitamins, minerals or fiber.

Cereals, particularly those designed for the adult market, have long been promoted as a means to better health. Long before the health-consciousness movement of the 1980s, Wheaties was known as “the breakfast of champions” and Cheerios gave you “go power.”

But prior to the ‘80s, health claims were very general, relating only to good nutrition and never linking the qualities of a food to the prevention of a particular disease. In 1984, Kellogg’s launched a trend that soon swept the food industry when it promoted All-Bran cereal with a message from the American Cancer Institute about the link between a high-fiber diet and reduced risk of certain kinds of cancer.

From that point on, cereal manufacturers made the most of available scientific data linking ingredients in their products to the prevention of diseases. Aware of consumers’ growing hunger for nutrition knowledge and their desire to maintain health through diet, cereal manufacturers, like the makers of so many food products, learned that health information on cereal boxes was an effective marketing tool.

Critics say that putting health claims on food packages is only a sales gimmick, but cereal makers say that nutritional information is an effective way to educate consumers. Nutritionists and even the Food and Drug Administration agree with the manufacturers, but they also feel some restraints must be placed on these claims.

“Food packages ideally are a terrific vehicle for teaching people how to take the complicated science called nutrition and translate it into what they see on their plates,” said Gail Levey, a registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Assn. “Unfortunately, they tend to be misleading. Most push consumer hot buttons--promoting on package banners terms such as oat bran, fiber or vitamin and mineral content. You are under the impression that if you have this cereal every day, you will never get cancer or you’ll always have low cholesterol when, in fact, the morning bowl of cereal is only a small part of your whole diet.”

Some consumers grew up in an age when ready-to-eat cereals were not considered nearly as substantial a breakfast as a hearty helping of bacon and eggs or pancakes and sausage. But, attitudes have changed.

Cereal not only is a quick breakfast, but it is nutritious as well, said Levey. Served with skim milk and fresh fruit, it is a great way to start the day.

“Cereal is an opportunity to provide the consumer with a good source of complex carbohydrates,” agreed Dr. Linda Van Horn, another registered dietitian and ADA spokeswoman and an associate professor of community health and preventive medicine at Northwestern University Medical School. “Personally, it really is enjoyable knowing there are so many choices on the shelves,” she added, viewing the increased selection of cereals as beneficial rather than a source of confusion.

To find the cereal that is right for you, do some comparison shopping by carefully reading the labels, Van Horn said. For optimum health benefit from cereal, go for the most fiber and the least amount of sugar, sodium and fat.

Fiber is the buzzword promoted most by cereal manufacturers these days. Some brands supply soluble fiber linked to the reduction of blood cholesterol, while others provide insoluble fiber found effective in reducing the risk of certain cancers.

Although there is no RDA for fiber, the National Cancer Institute recommends Americans increase their intake from the current level of 10 or 11 grams per day to 20 to 30 grams.

In the quest for fiber, cooked cereals, which tend to be less processed than ready-to-eat varieties, stand as the number one choice, Van Horn said.

But although hot cereals may be preferable from a nutritional standpoint to their processed, ready-to-eat counterparts, some consumers do not care for them or prefer something more convenient.

Although most cereals are fat-free, some are made with coconut oil, a highly saturated fat. These usually are granola-type products. A cereal containing oat bran, which may help lower cholesterol, isn’t going to be much benefit if it also contains a highly saturated fat.

Adding even more confusion has been a recent study questioning the cholesterol-lowering ability of oat bran. The study, conducted at Harvard University and published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, said that it was not the oat bran but a low-fat diet that was responsible for lowering cholesterol.

When asked if the study will affect the sale of oatmeal and oat bran products, Quaker Oats spokesman Ron Botrell replied, “We don’t have a crystal ball. We’ll have to wait and see. The key point most people should keep in mind, regardless of what study you want to study, is that oat bran is a healthful ingredient, an excellent source of fiber.”

Van Horn and Levey, who were not impressed with the way that study was conducted, advised against trading in oatmeal for a bowl of Cocoa Puffs, Fruit Loops or, worse yet, daily breakfasts of pastries or bacon and eggs. They would like to see more research before a conclusion is drawn and information is released.

Deciding which fiber cereals to select and how many bowls to eat a day to obtain a maximum benefit is not as complicated as it may seem, noted Van Horn, who was one of the principal researchers in the ground-breaking oat bran studies at Northwestern.

She said that consumers don’t have to worry about comparing the quality of the different grains because all offer their own particular nutritional advantages. “What you eat should be viewed in context of a week rather than a single day. Certainly the very best choice would be to eat a different one every day,” she added.

High-fiber cereals are those that provide five or more grams of fiber per serving. Do not feel guilty about preferring a bowl of corn flakes if you find some of the brans unpalatable. It’s still a source of complex carbohydrates.

“The bottom line is: Even the most nutritious food isn’t nutritious unless it gets eaten,” said Levey.

To increase the punch of low-fiber cereals, try mixing a bran cereal in with it, or add fresh or frozen fruit. And, keep in mind that cereal is only one of many sources of complex carbohydrates. Make sure other meals during the day contain other sources such as whole-grain breads, beans, fruits and vegetables.

Cereals containing fruit sound healthful and are convenient. But consumers can expect to pay dearly for the fact that the manufacturer has thrown in raisins, Van Horn warned.

Often the fruit or raisins are coated with unneeded sugar, which adds to these cereals’ calorie count.

Adding your own fruit, while less convenient, is usually more beneficial and not nearly as expensive. If fresh fruit is not available or you don’t have time to slice it, keep frozen fruit on hand.

Although sugar is not as crucial an issue as fat or sodium, cereals high in sugar are not nutrient-dense enough for the tremendous amount of calories they provide and may contribute to dental cavities.

But even sugary cereals, served with skim or low fat milk, are preferable to a high-fat breakfast of pastries. And, a little bag of Fruit Loops makes a healthier snack than chocolate chip cookies. Both Van Horn and Levey said that they snack on cereal.

The majority of cereal packages boast vitamin and mineral enrichment, the replacement of nutrients lossed during processing, and fortification, the addition of extra vitamins that weren’t originally there.

The processing of ready-to-eat cereals destroys important nutritional qualities of the grain, noted Van Horn. “To replace those nutrients is appropriate.”

Enrichment or fortification with iron can benefit those segments of the population lacking that mineral--women and children, said Van Horn. “In that case, it’s encouraging to know they are eating a good fortified breakfast cereal.” In fact, breakfast cereal is the number one source of dietary iron in this country, she added.

However, the need for super fortification of cereals--as is true of products such as Total and Product 19--is questionable, particularly when nutrients are added for which there is no proven deficiency suffered by any population of our country. “It’s certainly not necessary as long as you are eating a variety of foods,” Van Horn said.

Cereals such as these often are referred to as multivitamin supplements. And consumers pay dearly for the addition of those extra vitamins.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington, D.C.- based consumer group, recently chastised General Mills for the cost of fortification in their cereal Total. That cereal, they maintained, was little more than Wheaties with some extra vitamins sprayed on. A 12-ounce box of Total, they reported, contains about 1 1/2 cents more worth of vitamins than the same size box of Wheaties, yet sells for 65 cents more.

“It’s really ridiculous that cereal manufacturers have gone to the trouble of making a breakfast cereal a vitamin pill,” Levey said. “Most Americans succeed in getting their RDAs from the food they eat.”

Only those not eating a balanced diet might benefit.

But, Van Horn warned consumers that research indicates the body’s absorption of vitamin supplements or those sprayed on foods may not be as great as its utilization of those that occur naturally in food, further substantiation of the Dietary Guideline recommendation to eat a variety of foods.