Organics Does Not Equal Healthier Choices
This past weekend I was at the annual Austin Street Fair in Forest Hills, NY. While there, I happened across a booth for an organization that has a franchise location in the area known as Young Chefs Academy. Here is a brief synopsis of our conversation:
Me: So do you guys do anything with cereal?
Adult Chef Person (ACP): What do you mean?
Me: Do you cook anything using cereal like what they have in The Cereal Lover’s Cookbook
ACP: Well… yes, in fact just this morning we made popcorn balls out of Organic O’s.
Me: Why did you pick Organic O’s?
ACP: Well because it’s healthier.
WRONG!
Just this past week the lovely (and she is a cutie although that has nothing to do with it) Tara Parker-Pope from the New York Times Blog: Well posted an article about The Missing Ingredients in Organic Cereal. Do you know what this means? I don’t necessarily smoke crack.
Here is what was written:
For many kids, commercial breakfast cereal is the main source of daily vitamins and minerals. Take a look at Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes reduced-sugar cereal. A serving provides 25 percent of the recommended daily intake of seven essential nutrients, including iron, folic acid and other B vitamins. It also provides 10 percent of the recommended intake for vitamins A, C and D.
Now look at its organic equivalent: EnviroKidz Organic Amazon Frosted Flakes. The only ingredients are organic cornmeal, organic evaporated cane juice and sea salt. A serving gives kids only 2 percent of the recommended daily intake for vitamin A and iron, according to the label.
So you would need to eat 5 bowls bowls of EviroKidz Organic Amazon Frosted Flakes to get the same Vitamin A which equates to 600 calories and 12.5 bowls to get the same essential Iron which would equate to 1,500 calories. Did I mention its sodium content is 115mg? That means to get your Iron there would be 1437.5 mg of sodium ingested as opposed to the 140mg from Kelloggs Frosted Flakes.
As for Organic O’s, the cereal that the Young Chef’s Academy representative has proclaimed as being healthy… there is NO Vitamin A, Vitamin C, or Calcium. They do however have 4% Iron so you would only need 6 bowls and ingest 720 calories as compared to the one bowl of Kelloggs Frosted Flakes.
Anyone wondering why I didn’t say anything since I have become a self-proclaimed Cereal Avenger? Well I did. What happened was that what I have been saying all along is true. It’s not the cereals that are the problem, it is the severe lack of education on true nutritional information and its meaning of not only children, but adults as well. Here was the gist of the conversation after I point out that organics are not fortified and therefore lacking in nutrients:
ACP: Well Frosted Flakes isn’t healthy.
Me: Frosted Flakes is one of the healthiest cereals out there.
ACP: Well, I don’t think it’s smart to teach children to eat unnecessary sugars.
Me: So I guess because the zepoles are covered in “powdered” sugar they don’t count, right?
Of course, one of the kids looks up with the white stuff all over their little face at this point and she has nothing else to say. So I thanked her, and moved on.
Yeah, she was ignorant as to how to read and understand nutritional information. Everyone knows I am NO fan of Kelloggs Frosted Flakes, but I am less of a fan of uneducated and assumptive adults in the role of nutritional educators. While I had high hopes for an organization (which is franchised, lets not kid ourselves because they are out to make money too) such as Young Chefs Academy, they were a severe disappointment.
Don’t assume its healthier just because it says “organic” on the box. Become educated on how to read nutritional information and in applying it in your daily life.
For those of you who may doubt me… below the fold are the nutritional information for both Organic O’s and Kelloggs Frosted Flakes.
Organic O’s
Kelloggs Frosted Flakes
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I can’t stick my two thumbs up any higher than I already am! I have similar ‘discussions’ with my wife all the time.
This is all very true. I am a big proponent of the organic food movement, especially when it comes to having crap added into the foods, like BHT, MSG, hydrolyzed protien, pesticides, food dyes, etc, but we shouldn’t just assume something is healthier because it is organic or natural. I would argue that the vitamins in the cereal aren’t necessarily absorbed being such an annatural state, but it’s better to have them as a supplement, since many of our diets are deficient in some vitamin or another.
I think the Cereal Avenger needs to have a cape! Do you think you can work on that?
Your Grreeaatt!