Kashi's Heart to Heart Cereal Vs. Cheerios

Cold breakfast cereal is a staple in my life. It's relatively healthy, portable, and easy to prepare.

A few years ago, I decided to reduce the amount of refined sugar in my diet. I wanted to lose a little weight, reduce my cholesterol, and stop that nagging heart-pounding I got after I ate a couple of Pop-Tarts.

Breakfast cereals traditionally have loads of sugar in them, especially kid's cereals. Cheerios seemed like a healthier option, as sugar was not the first ingredient listed on the package. After discovering Kashi's Heart to Heart cereal, which looks similar to the Cheerios brand, I decided to compare the two.

General Mill's Cheerios have been around for a generation, hitting the market in the 1940s. The Cheerios website boasts that it was the "first ready to eat oat cereal". Cheerios has been a staple to parents feeding their toddlers and kids, as the cereal seems healthier than other sugar-laden varieties.

Cheerio ingredients are listed as "Whole Grain Oats, Modified Corn Starch, Corn Starch, Sugar, Salt, Tocopherols, Trisodium Phosphate, Calcium Carbonate, Natural Colour. Contains Wheat Ingredients". Those mothers were right - sugar is listed as the fourth ingredient.

Kashi is a smaller, more "granola-mama" type of company. Emphasizing their health-conscious, wholesome food products, the company was founded in 1984. Found next to the sugar cereals in the cereal aisle at the grocery store, Kashi's products seem to have jumped the "natural foods" stigmata, and have joined the ranks of the cereal big-boys.