The Truth About Cereals

When I go to my parents home for lunch, I can usually find one of my brothers waking up (yes, waking) and having a couple big bowls of cereal with tonz of milk. Bad. Bad. Bad. But they are young and invincible - so I am apparently crazy.

I, myself, love cereal. I grew up on it for breakfast along with some breakfast made from scratch a couple times a week. Growing older and getting more health concious, I branched out and only bought 'healthy cereals'. You know...organic, 100% whole grain, low sugar, blah blah blah.

Now, however, is altoghether different. I don't believe any commercially made cereal is good for you and I have always been against the homogenized, pasteurized, full-of-sugar milk that goes over it. I haven't bought cereal in months and I don't miss it.

Here is some literature I found, some taken from Fighting The Food Giants by Paul A. Stitt - a book I plan on obtaining soon and some information that was presented at a Candaian Health Forum. It's kind of long but it is very interesting!! Please read!! It goes along with everything I believe about the food industry.


"Cereal makers first create a thin mud like mixture composed of water and grains. This mixture is then put into a machine called an 'extruder'."

"The extruder forces the grain mixture out of little holes at high temperature and pressure. Depending on the shape of the holes, the grains come out as little 'o' shapes, flakes, animal shapes, or shreds (as in shredded wheat), or they are puffed (as in puffed rice). Each little flake or shape is then sprayed with a coating of oil and sugar to seal off the cereal and give it crunch."

"In his book Fighting the Food Giants, Paul Stitt tells us that the 'extrusion' process used for these cereals destroys most of the nutrients in the grains. It destroys the fatty acids; it even destroys the chemical vitamins that are added at the end. The amino acids [Definition: the molecules that form proteins] are chemically altered by this process, thus diminishing and destroying their original qualities and properties."

"This is how all the boxed cereals are made, even the ones sold in the health food stores. They are all made in the same way and mostly in the same factories. All dry cereals that come in boxes are extruded cereals [Editor's Note: except some basic cereals such as 'rolled' oats or 'steel cut' oats]."

The rat experiments that were never published:
"Let me tell you about two studies which were not published. The first was described by Paul Stitt who wrote about an experiment conducted by a cereal company in which four sets of rats were given special diets."

"One group received plain whole wheat, water and a synthetic vitamin and mineral solution. A second group received puffed wheat (an extruded cereal), water and the same vitamin solution. A third set was given only water. A fourth set was given nothing but water and synthetic vitamins."

"The rats that received the whole wheat lived over a year on this diet. The rats that got nothing but water and vitamins lived about two months."

"The animals on water alone lived about a month. But the company's own laboratory study showed that the rats given the vitamins, water and all the puffed wheat they wanted died within two weeks -- they died before the rats that got no food at all."

"It wasn't a matter of the rats dying of malnutrition. Autopsy revealed dysfunction of the pancreas, liver and kidneys and degeneration of the nerves of the spine."

"Results like these suggested that there was something actually very toxic in the puffed wheat itself! Proteins are very similar to certain toxins in molecular structure, and the pressure of the puffing process may produce chemical changes, which turn a nutritious grain into a poisonous substance."

"Another unpublished experiment was carried out in the 1960s. Researchers at Ann Arbor University were given 18 laboratory rats. They were divided into three groups: one group received corn flakes and water; a second group was given the cardboard box that the corn flakes came in and water; the control group received rat chow and water."

"The rats in the control group remained in good health throughout the experiment. The rats eating the box became lethargic and eventually died of malnutrition. But the rats receiving the corn flakes and water died before the rats that were eating the box! (The last corn flake rat died the day the first box rat died.)"

"But before death, the corn flake rats developed bizarre behavior, threw fits, bit each other and finally went into convulsions. The startling conclusion of this study is that there was more nourishment in the box than there was in the corn flakes."

"This experiment was actually designed as a joke, but the results were far from funny. The results were never published and similar studies have not been conducted."

"Extruded cereals sold in the health food stores are made by the same method. It may come as a shock to you, but these whole grain extruded cereals are probably more dangerous than those sold in the supermarket, because they are higher in protein and it is the proteins in these cereals that are so denatured [Definition: made unfit to eat] by this type of processing."

Excerpted from a presentation at the conference of Consumer Health of Canada, March, 2002, given by Sally Fallon, Nutrition Researcher
Instead of having cereal, make a really nutritious breakfast of eggs (fried, scrambled, or omelet with meat, cheese or vegetables) with bacon, sausage, hamburger patty or steak. If you feel you must have cereal to make it through the day, "rolled oats" or "steel cut oats" are still real food.

The idea that there are breakfast foods, lunch foods and dinner foods are something we learn when we are young at the dinner table and from our parents.

In fact, when you wake up in the morning your body usually tells you that it is hungry. Your body does not care whether you feed it a juicy steak and steamed broccoli or a plate of scrambled eggs. As long as it is real nourishing food, you will be on your way to improved health and vigor!