Here are the best healthiest cereal choices based off of many factors for each category. This will cover how to make a healthy cereal of your own, and options to making your current cereal healthier with some few tips, sugars, carbs, fiber, calories, and more.
It will cover the best options for weight loss, low sugar, and high fibers in the local grocery stores. If you don’t have some of the cereals that are recommended, we will cover how to spot the best cereals for your health endeavors.
Also a listing of healthy sugar, and milk options will be listed to create your own personal cereal.
Let’s do it.
Cereal Milk Options
This is by far one of the most important things to discuss in cereal. Here, we have plenty of options available, and what each can do. For a regular bowl for cereal, about half a cup of milk is typically used.
Here are the calories for each choice of milk:
- Whole Milk – (Full of Calcium & Proteins)
- Almond Milk – (Vegan)(Keto)(Low Calories)
- Oat Milk – (Vegan)(High Carbs)
- Soy Milk – (Vegan)(Similar to Whole Milk)
- Coconut Milk – (Keto)(Low Calories)
- Sweetened Condensed Milk
- Low Fat – (Good for weight-loss)
- Skim Milk – (Good for weight-loss)
- Non Dairy Creamer – (Good for the lactose intolerant)
Calories per half a cup:
- Whole Milk – 75 Calories
- Almond Milk – 30 Calories
- Oat Milk – 65 Calories
- Soy Milk – 65 Calories
- Coconut Milk – 40 Calories
- Sweetened Condensed Milk – 460 Calories
- Low Fat – 51 Calories
- Skim Milk – 41.5 Calories
- Non Dairy Creamer Powder – 45 Calories (30 calories per tablespoon used)
As you can see there are many milk choices for cereal that can be used for making cereal. From all the options provided, skim milk is the best for weight loss and low calories, whole milk provides the best nutrients, and soy milk is for vegans (which is also nutritious). Non-dairy creamer is good for the lactose intolerant, but so is coconut, soy, oat, and almond milk.
Some of these milks in cereal can drastically change the taste of the entire cereal, which can be good or bad depending on preference. Skim milk for example, needs more sweetener. Oat milk has a unique flavor.
The sweetened condensed milk has the most sugars, but it should also be noted that it is typically used in lesser amounts.
Cereal Sugar Options
For individuals that want to eat the healthiest cereals in the grocery stores, but can’t take the lack of flavor (you want the cereal to still taste good too), there are a few healthier sugar options.
- Stevia
- Monk fruit sweetner
- Yacon syrup
- Raw honey
- Fruit purèes
Any of these sweeteners can be used to make the cereal healthier, and the cereals lacking flavor that are available in the grocery store sweeter. From all of the options available, the monk fruit sweetener is the most popular, and the raw honey is the most beneficial.
The monkfruit sweetner is able to replace sugar at a ratio of 1:1. This means that for every gram of sugar that can be added to cereal, this can be used as a substitute without adding additional calories or carbs. It is really good for keeping the carbs down if that is what you are aiming for.
Stevia is another popular sugar replacement, along with yacon syrup. The yacon syrup has about a third of the calories of honey and sugar. Any of these sweetners can be added into any of the milk options to make them sweeter, giving a flavorful, healthier, larger variety of healthy cereal options.
Healthy And Unhealthy Cereals To Look For And Avoid At The Grocery Store
When we are looking for cereals, most of the time we are also looking for a great tasting cereal, not just a healthy option. Unfortunately many of the well known cereals don’t provide the optimal nutrition, but are nothing more than carbohydrate candy in your milk. Their focus seems to be to get you hooked on the taste, so that you keep buying their brand.
When picking out cereals in the grocery store, look for the ones that have the most polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats. Don’t forget that herbs and spices that are added in the cereals are extremely healthy. You can also add your own to you milk in your cereal in small amounts to make them healthier.
Look for proteins too, as most cereals lack them. It is very difficult to find one particular cereal that has every single thing that you need. So rather than focusing on the few extra small things you don’t want in cereal, instead look at how much the cereal is adding in benefits to your diet overall.
Even some of the unhealthy cereals for your diet can have some vital key things that you might not get in you and your family’s diet any other way on a typical day.
Here are some of the most unhealthy popular brands of cereal that have been around for a long time:
- Apple Jacks
- 150 calories, 17 grams of sugar, 35 grams of carbs, 2 grams of protein, 2 grams of fiber.
- Cap’N Crunch
- 150 calories, 16 grams of sugar, 33 grams of carbs, 2 grams of protein, less than 1 gram of fibers.
- Cocoa Puffs
- 140 calories, 12 grams of sugar, 31 grams of carbs, 2 grams of protein, 2 grams of fibers.
- Cookie Crisp
- 140 calories, 12 grams of sugar, 31 grams of carbs, 2 grams of protein, 2 grams of fiber.
- Frosted Flakes
- 130 calories, 12 grams of sugar, 30 grams of carbs, 2 grams of protein, less than 1 gram of fibers.
- Fruit Loops
- 150 calories, 12 grams of sugar, 34 grams of carbs, 2 grams of protein, 2 grams of fiber.
- Oreo O’s
- 160 calories, 17 grams of sugar, 34 grams of carbs, 1 gram of protein, 1 gram of fibers.
In all fairness Apple Jacks, Fruit loops, and Oreo O’s serving sizes are larger, meaning that all the calories, sugars, carbs, protein, and fibers are cut by 33%. For example, Apple Jacks is actually 100 calories per cup, which is what most cereal serving are based off of. All of the cereals listed here are based off of this 1 cup per serving.
None the less, all of these cereals were lacking in protein and fibers. However, they all had plenty of vitamins and minerals, just like any other typical cereal.
Of these most unhealthy popular cereal choices, the Apple Jacks, Fruit Loops, and Oreo O’s came out to be the healthiest choices for you and your kids if you had to pick one. They had the least amount of calories, carbs, and sugars overall per serving.
Of these, we actually found a decent cereal for your kids.
The cinnamon toast crunch rolls were found to be surprisingly more healthy than the typical popular cereal brands. It has 150 calories, 9 grams of sugar, 28 grams of carbs, 2 grams of protein, 2 grams of fibers per 1 cup serving. The carbs are less, and the sugars are a lot less.
Healthiest Cereals
Here are some healthy brands of cereals to choose from:
- Cheerios
- 140 calories, 4 grams of sugar, 29 grams of carbs, 5 grams of protein, 4 grams of fibers.
- 1 gram of polyunsaturated fats, 1 gram of monounsaturated fats.
- This cereal is the best for customizing and making your own natural healthy cereal options with the milk and sweetner of your choice. Fruits like berries can also be added, and nuts too.
- It has very low sugar, and it’s lower in carbs and calories than most cereals.
- Not a good option for kids, since it isn’t sweet, but great for adults.
- Cinnamon Toast Crunch
- 170 calories, 12 grams of sugar, 33 grams of carbs, 2 grams of protein, 2 grams of fibers.
- 1 gram of polyunsaturated fats, 2.5 grams of monounsaturated fats.
- This cereal, despite its looks, is a great option for kids if you actually want them to eat and enjoy their cereal. The additional healthy fats are what made this cereal a great healthier option, along with its great taste. They are two combinations that don’t happen very often: flavor and health.
- It also has real cinnamon, which is extremely healthy.
- Honey Bunches Of Oats
- 170 calories, 9 grams of sugar, 30 grams of carbs, 9 grams of protein, 2 grams of fibers.
- 1 gram of polyunsaturated fats, 2 grams of monounsaturated fats.
- The lesser amounts of sugar, great amount of proteins, and extra healthy fats makes this a great healthy cereal option.
- Kashi Go Lean
- 140 calories, 6 grams of sugar, 30 grams of carbs, 13 grams of protein, 10 grams of fibers.
- 0.5 grams of polyunsaturated fats.
- It lacks the extra healthy fats, but it has a few. This cereal packs some of the lowest calories per serving, has low sugar, very high protein, and plenty of fibers.
- Oatmeal Crisp
- 230 calories, 13 grams of sugar, 47 grams of carbs, 6 grams of protein, 6 grams of fibers.
- 1.5 grams of polyunsaturated fats, 2 grams of monounsaturated fats.
- This is a packed cereal full of healthy carbohydrates, despite the little extra sugars. It has one of the highest amounts of healthy fats, along with the complex carbs, making it one of the best cereals for weight loss. The carbs and fats take longer for the body to break down, meaning the body feels fuller for longer periods of time, promoting weight loss.
- Nature’s Path Golden Turmeric
- 160 calories, 7 grams of sugar, 34 grams of carbs, 2 grams of protein, 2 grams of fibers.
- No polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, but healthy spices like turmeric, cinnamon, amaranth, cardamom, and ginger.
- This is hands down one of the healthiest cereals in the grocery store. It is packed with the healthiest spices in the world (turmeric and ginger along with others), which give a plethora of health benefits.
- If this cereal had more protein, then it could be eaten more than just for breakfast. Adding some nuts into this cereal would help out a lot with that.
- Quaker Oatmeal Squares
- 210 calories, 9 grams of sugar, 44 grams of carbs, 6 grams of protein, 5 grams of fibers.
- 1 gram of polyunsaturated fats, 1 gram of monounsaturated fats.
- This is a great all around, better than most cereals cereal. It comes in different flavors like cinnamon, which have excellent health benefits. Quaker is also always packing those healthy polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats to boost the heart and brain’s health.
The extra polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats in these cereals are said to help boost brain health. The brain is made up of a very large percentage of fats. These are very important when it comes to cereal. They are also very hard to find in the regular daily foods.
This is why these cereals make some of the best healthy choices, especially since cereal is prominently consumed in the morning. Waking up and feeding the brain is the best thing you can do for you and your kids.
It is also important to select cereals that you and your kids actually want to eat. The flavors of the cereals are one of the things that drives are selections.
