A good marketing campaign deludes consumers, saying that Special K is exceptionally healthy and will lead to weight loss. In fact, without petite portions and strict adherence to healthy dieting and exercise, it could make that muffin top of yours poke out a bit more. Fact of the matter is, eating one small bowl of almost any cereal can help you lose weight. It's called portion control. This is an extended post comparing Special K products with Lucky Charms. Enjoy.
The Truth at the Other End of the Rainbow
Inundated by advertisements left, right, and center (and often not in the form of traditional advertising) we know a hellovalot of what's out there, but we don't know a hollovalot about what's in what's out there. Worse, because we're exposed unyieldingly to so much information, we've become lazy about filtering it. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the food consumer market. Sound a bit like my Oikos Ain't introduction (Gullibility + Laziness = Ignorance.)? Gee, maybe I'm on to something.
As a wee little dude, "Part of a balanced breakfast" was a term frequently and wildly thrown around in the sensationalised interruptions between my morning cartoons. Like many children, I heard it over and over again as I grew up, eventually making the connection that cereal was that integral balancer of my morning meals. I don't ever remember many advertisements for healthy cereals, like Special K--and Kashi was nowhere close to conception. But then again, for me, it was all about Cheerios, Froot Loops, Frosted Flakes, and... if God and Lady Luck so heard my prayers and wishes: Lucky Charms.
Oh, man. Lucky Charms! Those who know me now can't imagine I'd have loved such a sugary, synthetic food, but I would help myself to hearts, stars, and horseshoes all the way through boarding school. (In my defence, rarely did the mess hall produce a more tasty breakfast than microwaved frozen sausage.) But if only the end of the rainbow could be healthy! As a nutrition-conscious demi-adult, it was time for healthy cereals--like Special K.
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| You can lose just as much weight with Luck Charms as with Special K. It's not a challenge, it's common sense. |
Wrong
Turns out, Special K isn't all that healthy, and certainly not viable leverage for minimizing your body mass. This is due to Special K's injection of sodium, refined sugars, periodically some saturated fat, and the occasional transfat.
"But the commercials say I'll loose weight and be healthy." Think about this a second, friends... Kellogg's is telling you its own product is healthy... If this doesn't send off red flags and fire alarms in your head, then Darwin was wrong.
I recently compared my erstwhile coveted Lucky Charms to the healthy cereal--the one with television commercials of fit, happy women with thin arms and flat abs. I paired up two lines of the Special K brand, Chocolate Delight and Blueberry (these represent a good spectrum: the treat-yourself (chocolate) and the good-for-you (blueberries), and contrasted it with the clovers and blue moons to see which would best help people lose weight. Keep in mind, Special K is supported on a platform advertising its incredible weight-loss power.
Believe What I Say, Not What I'm Made Of
Three factors contribute to pejorative weight gain: fat, sugar, and sodium. Ironically, all of these are essential for complete nourishment; you just have to get the right ingredients from the right sources. Special K is unhealthy because it's a source of the wrong ingredients. Compare the nutrition panels of Special K and Lucky Charms. (For those of you who don't know, it's the spreadsheet-looking thing with vague numbers and odd words on the side of the box.)
Besides, having the same or greater number of calories, Chocolatey Delight has a significant saturated fat percentage. Fine, that's not surprising; it's chocolate, after all. Lucky's charms: zip. Woohoo, Blueberry has none! It's a good match thus far...
Sugars. Nine and eight grams, respectively, versus ten in Lucky Charms. "One all."
Sort of.
Note that Lucky Charms contains other carbohydrates. I don't like this term, because of the negative ring it bears. A better, scientific, term for these is complex carbohydrates. These are really good carbs (yes, carbs are good--the right ones in the right amount) because it takes longer for your body to digest them, thus you burn more calories in the process, as well as keep you fuller longer, and are less likely to turn to fat than standard sugars.
Sodium. As Livestrong points out, Special K (and, indeed, all cereals--and, really, all packaged and processed foods) is notoriously high in sodium. Lucky Charms, about the same. Not to mention, all those "fruits" that supposedly add nutrients to Special K are so processed and devoid of any goodness, you're doing yourself a grave disfavor by not throwing a ripe banana or natural berries in the mix. Actually, the Special K Challenge specifically instructs eaters to add fresh fruit to the cereal. (It also recommends daily exercise and mandates lots of vegetables for snacks and sides. Then, you'll drop the pounds. C'mon, guys, this is common sense. No one ever fell into obesity by overeating carrots.)
Fibre fights weight gain if eaten properly, because it doesn't get absorbed by the body and digests slowly, so you get full quick and hunger abates. Glance again at the picture of the Special K box front. See where it says "Good source of fibre"? That's a lie. With a whopping three grams, a bowl Special K has about as much fiber as a fig. Not even a serving of figs. Just one.
If you're still reading, you're certainly wondering if Lucky Charms is healthier than Special K. Let's take a look at the ingredients.
The first ingredient (thus the most prevalent) in Lucky Charms is comforting: Whole Grain Oats. Eat around the marshmallows (I know, you save them all till the end, anyway) and that's one single, nutritious ingredient. This is a lot healthier than rice, which leads the composition of most Special K cereals. The marshmallows certainly aren't healthy for you, but are a lot better than the partially hydrogenated oil in Chocolatey Delight.
"Trans fats," we read in The Intellectual Devotional: Health, "[are] also called partially hydrogenated oil." You see, after the 90s, when indisputable scientific evidence concluded that trans fatty acids were atrociously bad for us, corporate conglomerants like Kellogg's started integrating partially hydrogenated oils instead, oils which are comprised of trans fats. This is equivalent to boasting "There's no water in our ice."
Great, so there's trans fats in Special K, but not in Lucky Charms. Don't you wish you had this knowledge growing up? Lucky Charms wouldn't have to run their new campaign, "I forgot how good these taste!" You'd never have stopped eating it.
Speaking of campaigns, the Special K Challenge. Any marketing majors out there? Take note.
Livestrong points out,
"The Special K Challenge diet is essentially a meal-replacement plan developed by the Kellogg's company. Kellogg's says with this diet you can drop 6 lbs. (Author's note: Even though the Challenge website disclaims 4.8lbs is the average.) and a jean size in two weeks by eating one of their products for breakfast and also for lunch or dinner."
The plan works like this: Eat one bowl of Special K cereal for breakfast, plus one Special K product for lunch or dinner (this can be a cereal bar, protein shake, whatever... just so long as it's Special K). Snacks in between meals should be vegetables like carrots or sugar snap peas, and an apple before lunch. 30 minutes of exercise a day is recommended, and the non-Special K meal can be a low-fat one, like grilled salmon with spring potatoes and broccoli. The Special K Challenge website has fun recipes for this meal--that use Special K products as ingredients. Sound like a marketing ploy, yet? It's not? Really? Fine:
This diet is obviously a very clever marketing ploy created by Kellogg’s in order to sell more cereal.
That's from EveryDiet's website. They do a good job of presenting, rather objectively actually, the scheme behind the diet. See, you have to have a BMI (Body Mass Index) exceeding 25 for it to be noticeably affective. Additionally, have you ever wondered why the claim is "6 pounds in 2 weeks"? Because, it's not healthy to partake in the Special K Challenge for longer than two weeks. Furthermore, the Mayo Clinic points out that stopping the diet can lead to quick regain of lost weight, because it doesn't promote healthy eating habits.
The Challenge works because it's a low-calorie diet. It fails in that you'll be so hungry that overeating during "free" meals and after dieting is a considerable concern. It also makes Kellogg's millions of dollars because people are consuming their products at least two meals every day. However, if it takes a misleading marketing campaign to get the general public in the mindset of portion control, promote eagerness to lose excess weight, and get people focused on fit and active lifestyles, then I'm actually in favor of it. What? They've pulled the wool over most people's eyes already.
So how's this for a challenge: Think. Read nutrition labels. Learn about those long-winded ingredients and how they harm your body. Then, diet yourself. A big healthy breakfast, like eggs or egg-whites with lots of veggies, or some greek yogurt, or a oatmeal sprinkled with almonds. Go ahead and eat cereal, too, if you want. Stay away from boxes with bright colors and shiny objects (like Lucky Charms) and be weary of brands loudly proclaiming you'll lose weight eating them (like Special K). The best cereal you can eat is regular Shredded Wheat, because that's all there is: whole wheat. Add fresh fruit and cinnamon and you've got a filling, healthy start to your day.
The Nitty, The Gritty, and the Whole Grain
Cereals in general are not great for you. Even though they're so delicious. But flakes and shapes are the worst. This is because of the heating and pulverizing process the oats and wheat go through. Read more about it at this cool little, California-based website, The Holistic Squid.
Thanks you guys!
http://holisticsquid.com/why-breakfast-cereal-should-not-be-in-your-bowl/
http://www.everydiet.org/diet/special-k-diet
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/special_k_diet/AN02094
http://www.livestrong.com/article/289318-special-k-diet-problems/
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