General Mills, one of the big 4 cereal manufacturers, including brands such as Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Trix, and Wheaties,  announced yesterday that it will reduce the added sugar in its products. More specifically, the sugar in cereals advertised to kids will be reduced to “single digit” levels, according to the press release headlines. Reading the fine print of the comapny’s release, which basically extols General Mills as the best thing to happen to healthy diets since the invention of food processing, we learn that “by spring General Mills cereals advertised to children will all have 11 grams of sugar per serving or less.”

What you need to know:

The first thing you should know is that “11″ is not a single digit. 11 grams of sugar is still almost 3 teaspoons of sugar, and that’s for serving sizes for 4 year olds.

Nonetheless, General Mills should be commended for taking a step in the right direction. If all manufacturers follow suit, maybe in 2011 they can do another down round, and reduce added sugar to 1 teaspoon’s worth.

Here are two further improvements that General Mills can make:

- remove artificial colorings from all cereals. Red 40 and others have been linked to hyperactivity in children.

- stop using BHT to preserve freshness. BHT is also suspected of causing hyperactivity and cancer.

What to do at the supermarket:

Your children do not need a sugar rush first thing in the morning. Look for cereals that contain less than 6 grams of sugar. You can always add more at home.

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