8 Cereals With More Sugar Than a Chocolate Chip Cookie

Step away from the granola.


When I was a kid, I wasn’t allowed to eat cookies for breakfast. So instead, I became a granola junkie, eating bowls of the stuff topped with honey and yogurt. As it turns out, I might have been better off eating cookies—granolas have more sugar than any other kind of cereal, according to a report released Thursday by the Environmental Working Group, a health research and advocacy organization.

EWG analyzed more than 1,500 cereals, including 181 brands marketed to children, and determined that “most pack in so much sugar that someone eating an average serving of a typical children’s cereal would consume more than 10 pounds of sugar a year from that source alone.” Excess sugar intake has been linked to obesity and diabetes, as well as numerous other health problems.

Using the report, we compared Chips Ahoy cookies—which clock in at about 11 grams of sugar per three cookies—against a single serving of certain cereal brands. These servings aren’t large, often hovering around a cup, which for me, a smallish lady, is a very puny breakfast indeed. Here’s what we found:

Sergio33/Shutterstock

We were built for times like these

Russian bots are impersonating us. Trump and his allies want to silence us. AI wants to (and does!) steal our content. The list goes on. But with 50 years of experience, we know we were built for this moment: We’re ready to keep diving deep and uncovering the truth, then getting that to you right here, completely accessible and never behind a paywall.

While our work is free to read, watch, and listen to online, it’s incredibly costly to make. Court documents, travel, research: It all adds up. Because we’re a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on reader support to fund our investigations. Will you stand with us in these extraordinary times, as headlines clamour for our attention and disinformation is rampant? We can’t get the truth out without you.

We were built for times like these

Russian bots are impersonating us. Trump and his allies want to silence us. AI wants to (and does!) steal our content. The list goes on. But with 50 years of experience, we know we were built for this moment: We’re ready to keep diving deep and uncovering the truth, then getting that to you right here, completely accessible and never behind a paywall.

While our work is free to read, watch, and listen to online, it’s incredibly costly to make. Court documents, travel, research: It all adds up. Because we’re a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on reader support to fund our investigations. Will you stand with us in these extraordinary times, as headlines clamour for our attention and disinformation is rampant? We can’t get the truth out without you.

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

INDEPENDENT. BECAUSE OF YOU.

Mother Jones has no billionaires calling the shots—just readers like you making fearless reporting possible

Donate