MANY popular breakfast cereals contain as much salt and sugar as a packet of crisps or a chocolate bar, according to new research.

There is even one brand with as much fat as in a packet of thick pork sausages.

Parents will be shocked by the latest findings from the consumer organisation Which? as most believe a bowl of cereal is a healthy start to their children’s day.

Despite claims by manufacturers that they have cut down on salt and sugar in cereals the watchdog scrutinised 275 brands and found that an overwhelming majority, some 76 per cent, had high levels of sugar, a fifth had high levels of salt and seven per cent contained saturated fat.

The probe also found that of the 52 cereals marketed specifically for children some 88 per cent were high in sugar, 13 per cent high in salt and 10 per cent high in saturated fat.

The three overall worst offenders for children were Quaker Oatso Simple Kids (any flavour), Kellogg’s Coco Pops Straws and Mornflake Pecan and Maple Crisp. These get red alerts for sugar and saturated fat. Kellogg’s Coco Pop Straws contained the same amount of sugar as a two finger Kit Kat which has 34g sugar per 100g.

Which? is now calling on manufacturers to do more to reduce levels of these nutrients particularly in products appealing to children.

It is also pressing firms to adopt the red, amber and green labels on front of packs so that shoppers find it easier to pick out the healthier products.

So far Tesco and leading manufacturers Nestlé, PepsiCo, Kraft, Kellogg and Danone, have refused to endorse these red junk food labels on food advocated by the Food Standards Agency and instead prefer a complicated system of guidance daily amounts on packs.

Researchers at Which? worked out the colour coded alerts that should be included on front of pack traffic light labels for each product.

The five worst offenders for sugar contained 10 or more teaspoons per 100g and three are aimed at children — Asda Golden Puffs, Sainsbury’s Golden Puffs and Kellogg’s Ricicles. The other two are Morrissons Golden Puffs and Tesco Golden Honey Puffs. A teaspoon of sugar is equivalent of 4gs sugar.
Four of the five products contained more sugar per 100g than a Toffee Crisp which has 47.9g sugar. The highest were the Asda and Morrissons Golden Puffs with 55g sugar per 100g.

Another nine cereals contained more than four teaspoons of sugar per suggested portion of which several were mueslis where the sugar came from dried fruit.

Only 13 per cent of all products would have scored a green light label for sugar content.

The organisation however said that just 28 per cent of brands now contained “a lot of salt” compared to 40 per cent when it first exposed high salt contents in cereals two years ago.

But still one fifth of all cereals would have to carry a a red label for salt content and the worst offenders for salt despite their healthy image were Kellogg’s All Bran and Morrisons Right Balance which contained more salt than a bag of crisps.

Fat content was generally medium to low but two products would qualify for a red alert label for fat content - Sainsbury’s Crunchy Oat Cereal with 20.3g fat per 100g which is the same fat and saturated fat content of the supermarket’s own brand of thick pork sausages and Jordan’s Country Crisp Four Nut Combo which contained 28.5g fat per 100g, and a serving would give about as much fat as a McDonald’s McBacon Roll.

Three cereals were also found to have as much saturated fat as eating two fried eggs - these were Asda Hawaiian Crunch, Sainsbury’s Crunchy Oat and Asda Passion Fruit Crisp.

Sue Davies, chief policy adviser at Which?, said: “While manufacturers have made some efforts to reduce the salt levels in their breakfast cereals, we still found lots of products with high levels of salt as well as high levels of sugar. Despite their healthy image, some cereals also have high levels of fat and saturates.

“And with so much public concern about obesity and diet-related disease we’re particularly concerned that most cereals marketed to children are still high in sugar, and many are high in salt too. We want manufacturers to make further cuts to salt levels, reduce fat including saturates and sugar and remove all unnecessary trans fats, as well as marketing their products more responsibly.”

The latest salvo from Which? exposing brands for high levels of salt, sugar and fats coincides with anoffensive from MPs who are lobbying Ministers to force companies to adopt the traffic light labels.

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