If your toddler loves Kellogg’s Fruit Loops as much as our twins, you may want to take a closer look at the front of the cereal box. I think Kellogg has done a good job of adding an easy to understand Nutrition At A Glance^TM feature using their Guideline Daily Amounts (GDAs) right on the front of the box. The standard Nutrition Facts label showing the Daily Values (DVs) still appears on the back of the box. This new feature now appears on all of Kellogg’s cereals.

A simple and easy to read system

Even though Kellogg’s Nutrtion At A Glance looks very different from the Traffic Light Food Labeling system I wrote about recently, you can quickly see the serving size, total calories, total fat, sodium and sugars, and their percentage levels based on the GDAs. Additionally you can also see up to two more useful nutrients such as fiber, vitamins (A, C, E) and minerals (calcium, magnesium, potassium) and their percentages. This can help you understand the most important nutritional information quickly without having to read the detailed Nutrition Facts label at the back. You can also compare two different types of cereals before making a decision. However, do not compare a Kellogg cereal with another company’s cereal; say for example Cheerios® from General Mills. They use the Daily Values to calculate the percentages. Also, their serving sizes may be very different. This can be very confusing since there are no standard guidelines from the FDA for these types of the front-of-the-box labels. Therefore, it is a part of the marketing strategy by these companies to promote their products. Still, I think it is a step in the right direction.

But watch out for sugars

A word about the Fruit Loops though. A 1 cup (30 g) serving contains 13g of sugars, which is just a little too much in our opinion. You will notice that the front label does not show a percentage for the sugar because the recommended daily amount has not be established. While this is true, it has been suggested by the Institute of Medicine that not more than 25% of the total calories should come from added sugars. According to Kellogg’s website, this comes to about 125 g of sugars for a 2000 calories daily diet. Most toddlers need less than 1500 calories per day, so the maximum amount of sugars consumed throughout the day should be about 95g. A single serving of Fruit Loops will deliver close to 15% of the total sugars needed for the day. Just remember to cut down on fruit juices on the day you give Fruit Loops! We try to cheat and mix only a few of the colorful loops with Cheerios. Believe it or not, sometimes it does work!!