To wonder who is buying chocolate cereal

[Blueyseviltwin]

Who om each is buying Lion bar and Oreo cereal? See also lucky charms, nesquick and coco pops
These aren't breakfast foods (or any sort of food). I literally cannot imagine anyone thinking it is a reasonable way of feeding children?

You’d be suprised.

There's kitkat and lion bar cereal!? HOW DO I NOT KNOW THIS???

I've wondered similar. Doesn't seem healthy or tasty enough to bother with. If I wanted something healthy, or to fill me up, I'd go omelette for breakfast. If I wanted a tasty treat, I'd go for actual chocolate or a gateaux or something, not dry cereal.

I will say though in defence of it, my boy went through a horrific eating stage at age 2 (turns out children WILL starve themselves), and all I could get him to eat were those cereal shapes that look like trees and fish and people. Managed to build whst he would eat up from there, but it was a life raft at the time.

I agree with you. The problem is these aren't desserts or treats, they are breakfast cereals. A lot of them have spurious health claims on them. I am not talking about the likes of Cheerios ect ( perhaps not ideal) but things like Crave, Lion bar. Cereals that are really just sugar and very little nutritional value.
The problem is a child may eat this every day, a sweet yogurt at lunchtime and something similar at dinner, that is a lot of sugar without even having had a 'treat'.

Also I don't deny there's an issue with childhood poverty but these cereals are expensive. I have seen them for 4 pounds or so.

Of course if adults choose to eat them, that is their own business but it's very unfair to give these to children on a regular basis. ( I am not talking about the odd holiday).

My 91 year old aunt loves Coco Pops. She eats them with extra thick double cream and a glass of sherry whenever she feels like a snack.

Because breakfast cereals masquerade as a meal. A kitkat or an ice cream is homest about its status in the food world but breakfast cereals pretend to be a decent meal.

Used to buy them as a half term treat for my daughters

No, they don't pretend anything. It doesn't say "a meal" on the box, in fact the ingredients are clearly listed as are the sugar, carbs, fibre etc.
No pretence.

Rubbish.

You think this cr@p (which is usually something like 50-60% refined sugar) is cheap? And suitable for ‘poor’ people? It should be cheap as it costs nothing to make, but it isn’t.

If you’re poor, buy a loaf of bread, and if you want your children ‘to be full’ then have them eat six slices of toast instead. Rather than a hyperglycaemic sugar hit first thing, which crashes in a hour’s time, so they’re hungry again. It’s the fast route to obesity, diabetes, and an early death.

All that stuff is a total rip-off. Hyper-palatable, addictive, fat+sugar junk.

I’m with the OP.

You could easily get obese, by consuming something like the following none of which have sugar or UPF.

Breakfast
4 egg omelette cooked in butter with cheese, with sourdough toast, peanut butter and a smoothie you made with 10% yoghurt, bananas, mango and strawberries.

Dinner
Ribeye steak, creamy peppercorn sauce, triple cooked chips with home made mayo

Tea
Fish and chips

Snacks of nuts, avocado and cheese.

You could easily eat tons of calories without a single gram of sugar or UPF 🤷‍♀️

Oh my god though, I could not get through that much food! After a breakfast like that I’d be done till supper time. Isn’t that the reason people rarely get obese eating whole foods? Our appetite regulating hormones simply respond more effectively, whilst UPFs dodge them?

This is basically what my diet was when I became overweight! Good food, too much of it.

Six slices of toast made with cheap white bread (as that’s what the ‘poor’ people buy isn’t it?) is over 20g of sugar. Are the poor having it dry or can they add fatty butter?

Mine eat white toast and butter for breakfast, a ham and choose baguette for lunch, usually accompanied by crisps, and something equally beige (pizza, nuggets, pasta etc) for supper. You couldn’t be more UPF if you tried.
I wish mine would eat porridge, fruit, lentils, curries like the OPs children. I don’t even have the excuse of not being able to afford healthy food. Mine just won’t eat healthy food and I don’t want to end up with eating disorders so try not to make an issue of it. I was a poor eater as a child too and grew out of it. Hoping they’ll outgrow it too. They’re slim and very sporty, no sign of obesity. But yes, it’s tricky when they refuse to eat healthily.

If he having a 30g portion he must be absolutely famished after an hour or so... Only 111 calories, and 20% of those meagre calories are sugar...

Are you weighing his portions? Is he having more than that and other foods as well?

I buy chocolate cereal - ones I like -, eat it and enjoy it. Life is too short not to occasionally enjoy junk food.

@TropicofCapricorn
I work in an obesity service and I can tell you v few people eat like that. For one, all of those foods are satiety inducing unlike cereal, UPF bread, haribo ect. Obesity is multi factorial but UPFs make it much easier to eat a large amount of calories. Worryingly, a lot of these people are also malnourished, ie anemia, folate deficiency. Our food system needs a massive overhaul if anything is to change. It's a v sad situation and a lot of people are just trying their best.

I've never once fed my kids a breakfast cereal. I understand now why childhood obesity is so rife.

DS17 has eaten breakfast cereal since he was little, see also pain au chocolat.

He’s over 6 foot tall, athletic and has abs I’d kill for. Never been overweight in his life.

(also has zero fillings)

I only mentioned ‘poor’ because the poster mentioned ‘child poverty’, and held (absurdly) that buying high-sugar chocolate cereal was a solution.

I did not say ‘cheap’ bread. You did. Cheap bread is equally bad, it’s full of sugar as you say.

And butter is fine (never margarine, palm oil emulsions, or other pretend junk).

There’s nothing wrong with fat. It’s the fat+sugar (which does not occur in nature) and which we have evolved to find hyperpalatable, that is problematic.

Coco pops chocos are my favourite cereal. I've always loved chocolate cereal though!

I bought loads of boxes of the skinny (lol) crunch cereal that's a mix of chocolate hoops and little marshmallows, ditto with the flumps cereal. I was sad when I finished them all. Got them from B&M, but now I live too far away from there. They do banana flavoured cereal too, but I haven't tried that.

Now I'm on Weetabix, which is boring in comparison, although I do like them.

Oh I love this typo! Brilliant! And yes, crunchy nut cornflakes are brilliant for pudding!

A superb post from someone at the sharp end.

I live in rural England with a Chinese partner who despairs at the lack of healthy
food options available, both in the shops, and in local restaurants.

it really is a national scandal.

I'm just pointing out that it would be perfectly possible to be obese without sugar and UPF in your diet.

Please tell me you're trolling us 😅. I buy chocolate cereal for me because I'm here for a happy life even if it's not the longest one.