A (too) sweet breakfast

Bob and I both had oats for breakfast. I had a bowl of Kellogg's low fat granola with raisins, and he had oatmeal with a few raisins made in the microwave.

His oats had one ingredient--whole oats. Mine had whole oats, sugar, brown rice syrup, rice crisps (made with sugar) and molasses (aka sugar). Mine was 28% sugar (32 grams) and his was 0% (1 gram). Mine had 3 grams of fat and so did his. Mine had 115 mg of sodium and his had 0 mg sodium. Mine had 6 grams of protein and his had 5 grams. Mine had 4 grams of fiber and his had 6. Mine had 240 calories per serving and his had 150 calories. Serving sizes (in grams) were not the same probably because my serving size (larger) included raisins and he added raisins to his, so some of the nutrients were hard to compare.

But still, what part of my cereal was low fat, the most prominent phrase on the box? Compared to what--a candy bar? Who needs that much sugar on/in their cereal? US population consumes more than 300% of the recommended daily amount of added sugar. Since 2000 the rate of consumption of sugar is actually slowing down as is the increase in obesity. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6959843/

Dried fruit

We prefer golden raisins to regular raisins, and sometimes I like to use craisins, dried cranberries.  So today I was reading up on the nutrition differences and similarities between raisins and craisins.  They are really pretty close, except for all the sugar that has to be added to cranberries to make them edible. I suppose craisins would be preferable to candy if you have a sweet tooth.  But then I noticed that golden raisins have sulfur dioxide added and regular raisins don't.  So I had to look that up, too.

"Sulfur dioxide might not sound good enough to eat, but this food preservative does make its way into a number of edibles, including dried fruits such as raisins, dried apricots and prunes. Sulfur dioxide is one type of sulfite, a preservative whose name might be more familiar. Even a small amount of sulfite can wreak health havoc if you're sensitive to it. If you have asthma, sulfite sensitivity or sulfite allergy, eating dried fruits might cause serious health problems, including breathing problems, life-threatening allergy-like symptoms or, in rare cases, death." 

You can buy organic dried fruit and freeze it to preserve it, because that's what sulfur dioxide is used for.