How many of you have heard the General Mills claim that Cheerios are heart healthy? Actually it would kind of hard to miss such a claim when the popular cereal box has a heart shaped cereal bowl as well as blatant claims for its cholesterol lowering abilities. Now I am all for product claims that are legitimate and well founded and Cheerios has in fact been found to help lower cholesterol because of the soluble fiber found in oats. Recently, the FDA, acting predictably, issued a statement against General Mills, criticizing the cholesterol lowering claim as reserved solely for drugs. Apparently in the bizarre world of the FDA, the only substances that lower cholesterol are pure, sweet pharmaceuticals. Anyway, General Mills got slapped on the hand and as a result, they have removed their cholesterol lowering claim. Now as I said previously, I am all for legitimate product claims, so it strikes me as odd that Cheerios is still touting heart health. Here’s why.
Pop Quiz: If I showed you this bag of salty potato chips and this bowl of cheerios, which would you guess has more salt? The chips right? Wrong, the bag of chips has a “mere” 160 mg of sodium per 1 oz while Cheerios have just shy of 200 mg of sodium per 1 oz serving!
What is going on here? How can a company claim heart health on one aspect of their product and have another aspect go completely against heart health. This would be like Snickers claiming their candy bar was heart healthy because of certain good fats found in peanuts. It just doesn’t work.
Sodium as you know is highly correlated with hypertension aka high blood pressure and for over 73 million Americans, hypertension is a very real part of life. In fact, estimates put average sodium consumption around 6000 mg per day for Americans. This is far more than a hypertensive individual (or anyone for that matter) should include in their diet.
Now I don’t know about you, but I happen to love eating Cheerios and I would love to see them eliminate sodium from their breakfast cereal. Cheerios are made from oats and oats have 0 mg of sodium naturally so why not leave it that way. Join me in contacting General Mills and asking them to eliminate sodium from Cheerios before they claim their cereal is heart healthy.
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This one is best for kids and adults too. So glad that you have shared this information. Be back for more readings.
This is really interesting info. It’s a good example about how influential, and sometimes misleading, a claim can be. I’m curious if the sodium is added to the Cheerios for taste or maybe as a preservative or something. I often see foods that are low sodium but none that are sodium free. But this is probably due to the fact that our bodies need a certain amount to function. Maybe Cheerios can make the claim (and not be hypocritical) because people would not exceed their recommended sodium intake by eating a bowl of Cheerios. I think the recommended maximum sodium levels are 2500mg for a healthy adult and 1500mg for someone with hypertension. So a person with hypertension could eat a bowl of Cheerios and still benefit from the cholesterol lowering benefits. As long as they didn’t eat more than 8oz:) But I agree, they should at least offer a low sodium Cheerios. Good idea.