What’s the Healthiest Cereal to Buy in Canada?

By Agnes E. Utt 6 years ago

Cereal has come a long way since the 1950s; yes, it is still processed, and doesn’t grow on a tree, but the contents have improved a lot. Many have fewer additives (like preservatives, added colour and binders), and there are lots of products made with less sugar and 100 percent whole grains.



a pile of fruit

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There are two kinds of people in the world; sugar-cereal people and fibre-cereal people. One is looking for taste and possibly health benefits; the other is looking for anything their kids will eat! It is possible to find a cereal that makes both types of people happy. Here are a few tips to help you navigate this aisle of boxed energy.

(Related: Healthy Homemade Cereal With Walnuts, Oats and Apricots)

Look for lots of fibre

Breakfast is a great time of day to up your fibre intake. The recommended amount of fibre is 25g per day for women and 38g per day for men, and most people are not hitting these targets. Fibre is important for digestion, lowering cholesterol and helping to control blood sugar. (Here are other reasons to increase your fibre intake.)

There are two kinds of fibre: soluble and insoluble. Soluble fibre helps to slow down digestion by forming a gel in your intestines, which slows blood sugar absorption and can lower LDL (‘bad’) cholesterol. Insoluble fibre acts as a bulking agent and keeps things moving through your digestive system, which helps keep your bowel movements regular. Both are important and often present in breakfast cereals that contain high-fibre ingredients such as bran, whole grains, and oats. Some also contain high-fibre nuts, or add in some extra psyllium or flax to give even more of a boost. If the product contains at least 4g of fibre per serving, that’s a decent choice. On the nutrition facts panel, look for least 15 percent daily value fibre per serving.

Look for a well-ordered ingredients list

The ingredient list on a box of cereal is a LOT more important than the nutrition facts panel. Why? Because while there is always a margin of error when a product is analyzed for the nutrition label, if an ingredient is listed, it’s in there! And the ingredients are listed in descending order, meaning the first ingredient listed is what makes up most of the cereal.

As an example, if the first ingredient is cornmeal, then most of the cereal is cornmeal. Or if the first or even third ingredient is sugar, then it means there’s a lot of sugar in there.

The top of the list should include ingredients that are 100 percent whole grains, or unprocessed whole oats. Whole grains contain more fibre and protein. This includes whole wheat, barley, oats, buckwheat or rye, which are all great high-fibre choices.

Keep sugar as low as you can go

Gallery: These Are The Cutest. Holiday. Cookies. Ever (Best Health)

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Bakers gonna bake (especially in 2020)

When all else fails, bake. That’s more of an Instagram prescription than an ancient proverb, but there’s wisdom in those words. And at this time of year, especially this year, we could all benefit from the soul-soothing balm of sugar and spice. Great British Bakeoff 2018 finalist Kim-Joy provides just that with her new holiday cookbook, Christmas with Kim-Joy: A Festive Collection of Edible Cuteness — a riot of whimsical treats (with no-fail tips and vegan options) that bring big-time fun back into the kitchen.

(Related: 5 Awesome Cookbooks to Cure the Kitchen Blues)


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Shortbread cookies

This recipe can be rolled out thinly and used to cut out your shapes, though you will need to take extra care as this dough has a high fat-to-flour ratio and is therefore a little more delicate. If you are new to working with cookie dough, then use this dough for more simple shapes rather than intricate ones.

You can flavour this however you like – some festive flavour suggestions are orange/lemon zest, ground nutmeg, ground cinnamon, ground ginger, ground cardamom, almond extract or mint extract (pairs well with dark chocolate).

Makes 24 – 30

Ingredients:

  • 200g [3⁄4 cup plus 2 Tbsp] salted butter, at room temperature
  • 85g [7 Tbsp] caster or granulated sugar
  • 200g [11⁄2 cups] plain [all-purpose] flour, plus extra for dusting
  • 70g [1⁄4 cup plus 11⁄2 Tbsp] fine semolina

Instructions:

  1. Line a baking sheet that you can fit in the fridge with baking paper or a silicone mat. Beat the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until smooth and fluffy.
  2. Add the flour and semolina and mix until just combined. The dough should be slightly sticky, but soft and easy to handle. If necessary, wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill for 10–15 minutes until firm enough to roll out.
  3. Turn out onto a well-floured work surface and roll out to about 3mm [1 ∕8in] thick. Use cutters or templates to cut out desired shapes, and transfer to the prepared baking sheet.
  4. Refrigerate for 15 minutes, while you preheat the oven to 160°C [325°F].
  5. Bake for 10–15 minutes until just lightly browned at the edges. Leave to cool for 10 minutes on the baking sheet, then gently transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling. These can be left plain or decorated using royal icing (scroll down for a royal icing recipe).

(Related: Try These 3 Kitchen Hacks For Healthier Holiday Baking)


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Basic Vegan Shortbread

This shortbread tastes like it is full of butter, thanks to the coconut oil, and people are always surprised that it’s vegan. It has just a hint of sweetness, so it’s perfect for covering with royal icing. If eating these plain, then sprinkle some caster or granulated sugar on top just before baking. You can also add 20–40g [11⁄4 Tbsp–31⁄4 Tbsp] more sugar to the dough, but this will make the shortbread a little more chewy rather than crumbly.

Makes 24 – 30

Ingredients:

  • 225g [13⁄4 cups] plain [all-purpose] flour, plus extra for dusting
  • 130g [2∕3 cup] organic extra virgin coconut oil (solid and scoopable)
  • 40g [31⁄4 Tbsp] caster or granulated sugar
  • 30–50ml [2–31⁄2 Tbsp] cold water

Instructions:

  1. Line a baking sheet that will fit in your fridge with baking paper or a silicone mat. Add the flour to a large bowl, then add the scoopable coconut oil and rub it into the flour using your fingers. Stir in the sugar, then add just enough cold water to bring the dough together into a ball.
  2. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and roll out until it is 3–5mm [ ∕8–1⁄4in] thick. Use cutters or templates to cut out your desired shapes. Transfer the shapes to the prepared baking sheet and chill for 15 minutes while you preheat the oven to 160°C [325°F].
  3. Bake for 10–15 minutes until just starting to colour at the edges. Leave to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.

(Related: The Vegan and Gluten-Free Sugar Cookie This Nutritionist Loves)


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Cookie Decorating Tips, Tricks, and Ideas

Royal icing consistency

Different people like to work with different consistencies, but I like to work with what is called a “15-second icing”. This means that after stirring the mixture, the surface will return back to its former smooth state in about 15 seconds. This consistency will work for both outlining AND flooding, so is much easier than making two batches. The definition of ‘15-second icing’ varies for everyone though, as everyone counts differently, so it’s mostly about practising and getting the feel for the correct consistency. My royal icing recipe should get you to roughly the consistency you will need, so hopefully you can work from there! If icing can get back to being smooth in 15 seconds, maybe you can too! Take your time with this.

Easy royal icing recipe

This makes enough for a decent number of cookies

  • 40g [11⁄2oz] egg white (substitute with aquafaba for a vegan version)
  • 225g [12∕3 cups] icing [confectioners’] sugar
  • plus extra egg white (or aquafaba) and icing [confectioners’] sugar to adjust and get the right consistency

Use a stand mixer (or handheld electric whisk) fitted with a balloon whisk attachment to combine the egg white/aquafaba and icing sugar until you get a smooth consistency. Then add tiny amounts of extra egg white (or aquafaba) and/or icing sugar to get the right consistency. Add food dye to colour as desired! That’s it!

Disposable piping bags

Good disposable piping [pastry] bags are your friends! You want to buy some that don’t have a seam, as this can get in the way when piping. For outlining and for piping intricate details, cut a teeny tiny tip from your piping bag. For flooding, cut a slightly bigger tip (depends on how big an area you are flooding). That’s it. No need for piping nozzles, which make washing up a lot harder! If you ever cut a tip that’s too big, or want to change to a smaller opening, then just pop the piping bag into another piping bag. Cut the tip as desired and continue!

Cookie prep, planning and layering

It helps to draw a guide of where you will pipe the outlines, directly on the cookie. It also helps to know what colours you are going to use before you start, so you can mix them all up and put into piping bags. I don’t always know what colours I will want, so I always leave some white royal icing in a bowl that I can dye later. Just make sure to cover the bowl with plastic wrap, as the surface will crust up quickly.

Sometimes things come to you as you go along. A vague idea is all you need. That’s okay too. Cookie decorating does take some forward planning if you want to do more than one layer, in which case you would wait a few hours for the first layer to dry before working on the second, or third. For instance, you may have a background layer using the wet-on- wet technique to create a sunset, and then after that dries you might want to pipe some mountains on top of that, then add some painted birds. Or you might want to pipe some tiny flower detailing on a dress. The layer underneath would need to be dry before you can do all these things. While your biscuits are drying, set them aside and find something to do (or not do!) to relax.

Outlining

When you first start piping royal icing in a neat line, you might find it tricky. It’s not like dragging a pen across a surface. You need to pipe, lift and ease the line where you need it. Don’t expect to be perfect the first time! Practise and you will get better.

Flooding

No, not the psychological therapy used to overcome phobias – this is much nicer. Once you’ve planned and then outlined your cookie, it’s time to flood. All you are doing is just filling the space inside, and the outline will stop it leaking over. Use a cocktail stick [toothpick] to even it out and get rid of any bubbles before it sets.

Wet on wet

This is when you use two different colours and a toothpick to create some interesting effects. This is useful for polka dots, hearts, flowers and scenes that involve a beautiful gradient of colour (e.g. sunsets, skies, seas, fire).

Painting on royal icing

When your royal icing is completely dry (4–6 hours, but I generally just wait overnight to be sure), you can paint on it using food dyes or lustre dusts mixed with vodka (it evaporates quicker than water). You can also brush on lustre dusts to give depth, and draw on the icing using edible ink pens – anything you can paint or draw, you can do on an iced cookie.

(Related: Vegan? Make Sure You Eat These Nutritional Superstars)


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Hedgehog German Cookies

Festive little hedgehogs! These German-style cookies are extremely delicate and have a “melt in your mouth” texture thanks to the addition of potato starch. You can replace the potato starch with plain [all-purpose] flour, but this will result in a more ordinary shortbread, rather than the special texture of these cookies. Feel free to decorate these hedgehogs with whatever sprinkles you like!

Makes 15 – 20

Ingredients: 

  • 125g [½ cup plus 1 Tbsp] salted butter, at room temperature, cubed
  • 40g [5 Tbsp] icing [confectioners’] sugar
  • ½ tsp vanilla bean paste
  • 125g [¾ cup plus 1 Tbsp] potato starch, plus extra for dusting if needed
  • 80g [²∕³ cup minus 1 Tbsp] plain [all-purpose] flour (to make gluten free, substitute with glutenfree flour plus ½ tsp xanthan gum)

Plus:

  • 150g [5oz] dark [bittersweet] chocolate, roughly chopped hard pretzels
  • Festive sprinkles of your choice
  • Brown round sprinkles

Instructions:

  1. Cream the butter and icing sugar together in a stand mixer (or use a handheld electric whisk) fitted with a balloon whisk attachment until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla bean paste and mix again until combined. Sift in the potato starch and plain flour (or gluten-free flour plus xanthan gum), then combine into a ball using a spatula. Avoid overmixing.
  2. Shape the dough into smooth round balls (about 19–26g [¾–1oz] each) between your hands. Refine the shape further by making one end narrower than the other and try to shape a smaller point for where the hedgehog’s nose will be. The dough is a little sticky and tricky to handle, so use potato starch or flour to stop it sticking to your hands. Try to handle the dough lightly and, the less you handle it, the more the cookies will crumble and melt in your mouth.
  3. Line a baking sheet with baking paper. Place the cookies on the sheet and chill in the fridge for 15–30 minutes. At this point, preheat the oven to 160°C [325°F/Gas mark 3].
  4. Bake for about 15–20 minutes (smaller pieces will bake quicker). They will expand slightly but will hold their shape very well.
  5. When baked, leave to cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer carefully to a wire rack to let them cool completely (be careful when transferring as the cookies are very fragile – though this is also part of what makes them so delicious too).
  6. Place the dark chocolate in a microwaveable, bowl and melt in short 20-second bursts in the microwave, stirring well between each.
  7. Spoon the chocolate over the cookies, leaving the face exposed and reserving some of the chocolate for the facial features. Break the pretzel sticks so that they look like reindeer antlers. Stick the antlers on either side of the hedgehog’s head, pressing slightly into the cookie so they stay in place. Scatter sprinkles over so they stick to the chocolate. Repeat with all the hedgehog cookies.
  8. Use a spatula to transfer the remaining chocolate to a piping [pastry] bag and cut a very small tip. Pipe a little chocolate to adhere a round brown sprinkle for the hedgehog’s nose, then pipe 2 dots of chocolate for the eyes.

(Related: Red Pepper Jelly Makes the Best Homemade Holiday Gift)


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Reindeer Bakewell Tarts

These are the real deerl! Buttery and crisp pastry, fruity jam, moist almond frangipane and sweet icing topped with an even sweeter reindeer design. The trick with these is to make sure your pastry is elegantly thin, and blind baking is a must. Be careful not to overwork the pastry, and take this recipe one step at a time, as all will be right as rein.

Makes about 12

Ingredients:

Pastry

  • 150g [²∕³ cup] salted butter, at room temperature, plus extra for greasing
  • 225g [1¾ cups] plain [all-purpose] flour (to make gluten free, use gluten-free flour plus ½ tsp xanthan gum), plus extra for dusting
  • 40g [3¼ Tbsp] caster or granulated sugar
  • 1 medium egg

Frangipane:

  • 100g [½ cup] caster or granulated sugar
  • 100g [7 Tbsp] unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 1 medium egg
  • ¾ tsp almond extract
  • 100g [1 cup] ground almonds

Icing:

  • 200g [1½ cups] icing [confectioners’] sugar, plus extra to thicken 2 Tbsp water

Plus:

  • 4 Tbsp jam of your choice black food dye
  • 12 glacé [candied] cherries
  • 24 hard pretzels

Instructions:

  1. First, make the pastry. Grease a 12-hole muffin tray with butter. Add the flour (or gluten-free flour plus xanthan gum) to a large bowl. Chop the butter and add it to the bowl, then rub it into the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Don’t overwork. Stir in the caster sugar. Beat the egg in a separate small bowl, then add 2 Tbsp to the main mixing bowl and stir, gradually combining it with the rest of the mixture. When the egg is stirred through, use your hands to form the pastry into a ball.
  2. Roll out the pastry on a generously floured work surface as thinly as you can and use round cutters to stamp out 12 circles of pastry. Use your fingers to gently guide each circle of pastry into each muffin hole. Prick the bases with a fork 2–3 times, then place in the fridge to chill for 20 minutes. At this point, preheat the oven to 180°C [350°F].
  3. Line the chilled pastry shells with muffin or cupcake paper cases, then fill with baking beads (or you can use lentils or rice) and blind bake for about 15 minutes. Remove the baking beads and paper, then bake for a further 5–7 minutes until golden and crisp.
  4. Meanwhile, make the frangipane. Cream the sugar and butter together in a stand mixer (or use a handheld electric whisk) on high speed until light and fluffy. Add the egg and almond extract and mix until just combined. Fold in the ground almonds. Set aside.
  5. When the pastry has finished blind baking, remove the pastry cases from the muffin tray and place on a baking sheet; they should stand up on their own.
  6. Spoon 1 tsp of jam into each of the bases, then fill with frangipane, about three-quarters of the way up, as it will rise slightly. Return to the oven to bake for a further 15–20 minutes until the frangipane is set.
  7. When baked, transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool completely.
  8. Meanwhile, make the icing [frosting]. Just whisk the icing sugar and water together in a bowl until smooth. Spoon about 1 Tbsp into a separate bowl and add black food dye to colour, plus extra icing sugar to thicken to a pipeable consistency. Transfer to a piping [pastry] bag, ready for later. Cover the bowl of white icing with plastic wrap.
  9. When the tarts are cool, spoon the white icing over the top and carefully spread to the edges. Place a glacé cherry in the centre, then add the pretzel antlers. Cut a small tip off the black icing piping bag, then use to add eyes and a mouth. Use the back of a spoon to add a dot of white icing to the cherry nose to give it depth.

(Related: 5 Delicious Almond Flour Recipes to Try in Lockdown 2.0)


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Vegan Alternative

Ingredients:

Pastry:

  • 360g [2¾ cups] plain [all-purpose] flour (or substitute with gluten-free flour plus ¾ tsp xanthan gum)
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 20g [1½ Tbsp] caster or granulated sugar
  • 215g [1 cup minus 1 tsp] organic extra virgin coconut oil (not liquid, it should be at room temperature and scoopable)
  • 65–80ml [4 1/3 –5 Tbsp] cold water

Frangipane:

  • 50ml [3½ Tbsp] vegetable oil
  • 75g [6 Tbsp] caster or granulated sugar
  • 75g [¾ cup] ground almonds
  • 50g [6 Tbsp] plain [all-purpose] flour pinch of baking powder
  • 50ml [3½ Tbsp] plant-based milk
  • ¾ tsp almond extract

Instructions:

  1. To make the pastry, mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Add the coconut oil and use your fingers to rub it in until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add enough water to combine and form into a ball. Use in the same way as the non-vegan pastry in the original recipe.
  2. For the frangipane, whisk the oil and sugar together in a large bowl. Add the ground almonds, flour and baking powder and whisk again until combined. Add the plant milk and almond extract and whisk. Use in the same way as the non-vegan frangipane in the original recipe.

Tip: I used a cupcake tray in which each hole is 7.5cm [3in] across, so I used a 10-cm [4-in] cutter for the bases and a 7.5-cm [3-in] one for the lids, but if you have a larger tray, then use larger cutters.

Excerpted from: Christmas with Kim-Joy: A Festive Collection of Edible Cuteness by Kim-Joy, (Quadrille, $32.99), Photography: © Ellis Parrinder.

Next: 11 Holiday Cookies You’ll Want to Bake This Season



7/7 SLIDES

We certainly don’t need to seek out sugar, it finds us easily enough. Breakfast cereals are notorious for high sugar content. Some are even marketed to kids for this exact reason. But sometimes it can be difficult to gauge sugar content by looking at the label. We don’t have a daily amount of sugar we need to get everyday, which is why you won’t see a percent value on the nutrition facts panel. Added sugar in adults and children’s’ diets is linked to several health issues such as type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease.

Aim for less than 8 grams per serving. Serving sizes can be deceiving (who has ever eaten a ¼ cup of granola?!) so make sure you calculate the total in an average serving. For example, if a ½ cup of cereal is 8 grams of sugar, but you eat 1 cup, then you are really consuming 16 grams of added sugar. Virtually all cereals will have some source of sweet, whether added sugars, raisins or other dried fruits, so aim to get a lower number if you can. High fibre cereals with some added sugars are an even better choice, to slow the sugar released into the bloodstream.

Sugar goes by many names on the label; glucose, cane sugar, organic sugar, fructose, high-fructose corn syrup, brown rice syrup, inverted sugars, raisins and dried fruit are all forms of sugar that can be added to cereal.

(Learn what happens to your body when you stop eating sugar.)

Know what else to look for

Cereal can be a source of many other important vitamins and nutrients due to the fortification of some flours. Some cereals have higher protein content with nuts or whole grains, which helps to keep you full. These can also be good and excellent sources of calcium, iron and B12 which are bonuses for kids. Many whole grains contain other important B-vitamins and potassium.

Unfortunately, there are still many cereals that are marketed to children that use colours and characters to mask poorly made food. Food colours and additives have been linked to hyperactivity and disturbed behaviours in children who are sensitive to them. It is a common myth that sugar alone is the culprit of “hyperactivity in kids;” many industrial ingredients are at play, since they are eaten together and not in isolation. Watch out for cereals with higher daily values (15 percent or higher) of saturated fat or sodium.

Don’t be fooled: gluten-free, organic or expensive does not always equal better

There are many cereals targeted for people with allergies or other special diets. These might contain modified or gluten-free ingredients, but these aren’t necessarily “healthier” by definition. Ultimately, you should still follow the ingredient list and the numbers on the nutrition facts panel. These cereals may still be low in fibre, nutrients and contain high amounts of sugar. Foods that are specifically marketed as organic are not necessarily healthier either for the same reasons, and can also have the same or more sugar than other cereals.

So, is there ONE ultimate cereal?

The answer is yes, and it starts with an “o” but isn’t in the shape of one. If there was an Olympics of cereal, steel-cut oats would be the gold-medal winner. Oatmeal porridge is versatile and comes in many forms from instant to steel-cut. The less processed the better. Oats are nourishing, full of beta-glucan fibre for helping to lower cholesterol and blood sugars, and can be dressed up a million ways; try peanut butter and chopped apples, or maple-syrup and walnuts. A bowl is full of not one, but two very beneficial fibres, vitamins, minerals and served warm to soothe the gut. Nothing quite “sticks to your ribs” as a bowl of piping hot oatmeal porridge, especially on a cold winter day. (Try our banana overnight oats.)

The reality of modern life for many people, especially working parents, means cereal will have a place in your pantry. The good news is products are being made that include lots of fibre, without unwanted chemicals and lower amount of sugar, so you have a choice.

Nishta Saxena is a registered dietician and nutrition educator based in Toronto.

Next: 16 Healthy, Energy-Boosting Breakfast Recipes You Need When Working From Home

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