Children Fed Low-Sugar Cereal Will Eat More Fresh Fruit

Children are naturally picky eaters. It's all in the genes, and I'm not talking Levi's here. Way back when we were hunter gatherers, the women and children foraged for food on the forest floor, while the men hunted game. The women and children learned to identify the foods that were OK to eat by the taste. As a rule, fruits that taste sweet are the non-poisonous ones.

So children developed a natural affinity for things that taste sweet. Adults have that affinity as well. That's why so many sweets are sold in the United States every year. Bitter foods can be the most poisonous, so that's why they are the least favorites of our tastes.

Sugar is also the natural "speed" of choice for children. It usually makes them very hyper. So the first thing that they want in the morning to get them going is sugar, and we are usually quick to oblige them for the sake of our sanity.

But sugar-laden cereals don't have a lot of nutritional value and when they do it's usually artificially added. Fresh fruit is a much more healthy alternative to the cereals that are loaded with sugar, but will your kids eat them? And the cereals are backed by the multi-billion dollar advertising industry.

So most parents give up after they sit a bowl of fresh fruit out for their kids for the very first time and give them the cereal that they want. But some recent research shows that if you deny them the sugary cereal, they will eat more fresh fruit, and that's certainly more healthful for them.

According to Medical News Today:

"If you give children low-sugar cereals and place some fresh fruit and sugar on the table, most of them will add a good portion of fresh fruit, researchers from the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, Yale University, wrote in the medical journal Pediatrics."

Basically, the study has shown that children will make healthier choices even with all of the marketing of the high sugar cereals if given the choice.

The children who got the low-sugar cereals added fresh fruit to the cereals much more than the children who received the high-sugar cereal, The numbers were 54% and 8%.

90% of all of the children tested said that they loved their breakfast, and the number who preferred the high sugar cereal over the low sugar cereal was virtually the same.

But the children in the high sugar group had twice as many servings as the ones in the low sugar group. This may mean that the high sugar group may have gotten more of a "sugar high" than those in the low sugar group and wanted a second serving.

Most of the children tested were from low-income households. The scientists noted that a larger, more comprehensive study is needed.

Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/211287.php