Running Mania

It makes me nuts to see all this vector talk and ads like it is a God sent to runners.
My 2 cents is that Kellogs should take their marketing budget down by a million adn put it into creating a cereal that is going to benefit us.

Exhibit a
Rice, whole wheat, sugar/glucose-fructose, soy protein, rolled oats, soy protein concentrate, vegetable oil, salt, honey, rice flour, barley malt syrup, natural and artificial flavour
It has 4 different sugars?
21g of sugar and 2.7 g of fiber.
And what does natural and artificial flavour mean? Check what falls under that category at the CFIA site.

I have no problem with cereal, but when the running room teams up with it I find it sad.
I know it's business, but hey, the running room should be promoting healthy eating and a good healthy day would not start with a cup of Vector cereal.

Check out shredded wheat.
almost 0 sugar
6 g of fiber.
add some berries and a few nuts to that and BAM!!! A very healthy breakfast.
Now that my distance running friends is some high end fuel...

(I am grumpy in the morning)

It's scary that so many people treat Vector the same as they do Shreddies or Special K or regular cereals- people eat it as a snack and feel like it's health food. There are almost 300 calories in a serving!! Special K has 100 or something. Add on a cup of milk and you've probably got close to a 500 calorie "snack"!! I guess if you're using it as an actual MEAL it's OK, but just because it's cereal doesn't mean it's necessarily great "go to" food.

I always thought that Vector (bars and cereal) were promoted as meal replacements? Well, at least they were initially...

Robbie - what are your thoughts on Kaski Go Lean?? Similar perhaps?

Karen

KBO wrote:I always thought that Vector (bars and cereal) were promoted as meal replacements? Well, at least they were initially...

What's a meal replacement? That's a marketing strategy, not a nutritional concept. They call it that because it's loaded with extra added vitamins... like mixing in a vitamin pill into your food.

To be fair, though, Rob... the numbers you quoted are for the cereal plus milk... some of that sugar is from the milk. Vector alone (a "55g serving") is 11 g of sugar... still on the higher side, and very high in refined carbs.

Kashi "Go Lean" is very good actually... high in protein and fibre, low in sugar.

Jwolf wrote:
Kashi "Go Lean" is very good actually... high in protein and fibre, low in sugar.

how about All-bran??? I eat that everyday...

While it may be true that Vector is higher in sugar, it's still the lesser of the evils--it's a lot more nutritious than, say, Cap'n Crunch. And there's no way I'm eating Shredded Wheat. That's just gross, even if you add fruit.

Gotta have a balance between nutritious and yummy. ;)

Jwolf wrote:

KBO wrote:I always thought that Vector (bars and cereal) were promoted as meal replacements? Well, at least they were initially...

What's a meal replacement? That's a marketing strategy, not a nutritional concept. They call it that because it's loaded with extra added vitamins... like mixing in a vitamin pill into your food.

To be fair, though, Rob... the numbers you quoted are for the cereal plus milk... some of that sugar is from the milk. Vector alone (a "55g serving") is 11 g of sugar... still on the higher side, and very high in refined carbs.

Kashi "Go Lean" is very good actually... high in protein and fibre, low in sugar.

Agreed on the marketing strategy...I was just thinking about the difference between eating it for a meal and eating it as a snack.

I just bought Kashi Go Lean for the first time....still trying to decide if I like it or not.

Karen

klewlis wrote:...Cap'n Crunch. ...

there was just a feature in the Globe about comparing breakfast cereals to candy bars. Nutritionists say that cereals like Cap'n Crunch shouldn't even be considered "food" (that was one of those up there that had more sugar per serving than some chocolate bars).

While I agree with you on Shredded Wheat, there are lots of good choices out there... my favorite if I want a bit of sweetness is cheerios with a little bit of added honey or maple sypup (not the sweetened kind-- those are also way too high in sugar). Cheerios alone has only one gram of sugar per serving, plus some good fibre and protein.

In picking healthier choices, I'd opt for cereals that have less then 5 g of sugar per serving and at least 3 grams of fibre (more is better ). I like to see some protein, too....

p.s. all bran is good... a bit higher in sugar than I'd like to see, but also very high in fibre. Also, serving sizes for cereals is NOT standarized, so you have to be careful there.

Also, serving sizes for cereals is NOT standarized, so you have to be careful there.

What a great point....we should all look at the serving size. Most of us likely eat two servings at a time!

Karen

D-Man wrote:how about All-bran??? I eat that everyday...

Read the box!

I really like All-Bran Strawberry Bites. They've got 9g of sugar (which I admit is a bit high) but they have 5g of fibre. And, best part, they're yummy. I'd never eat regualr all bran or shredded wheat so I figure this is a nice compromise.

babysteps wrote:I really like All-Bran Strawberry Bites. They've got 9g of sugar (which I admit is a bit high) but they have 5g of fibre. And, best part, they're yummy. I'd never eat regualr all bran or shredded wheat so I figure this is a nice compromise.

This is my favourite cereal too It's the only bran cereal I can get my 3 kids to eat. Yep, that's right 3 - my 2 daughters and husband. He's the worst offender when it comes to sugary cereal. Every now and then he smuggles the giant size box of Reeses Pieces cereal into the cupboard when I'm not looking I hate the way these cereal companies promote this sugary crap to kids (and big kids) and call it part of a nutritious breakfast

Joanne

I eat a half cup of kashi go lean crunch and 200grams of yogurt for breakfast each day - not a huge milk and cereal lover but i mix mine with yogurt

Cherrios with 1% milk and 1/2 a sliced Banana. Delicious and both my girls can have it for breakfast.

I used to have the Quaker Instant Oatmeal (flavoured), until I really started paying attention to the food labels. 16 grams of sugar for one package. I used to eat 2 or 3 at a time.

What really bugs me is how they label it as "Low Fat" like it's a healthly option.

That's not food, thats candy!

Steve-O wrote:What really bugs me is how they label it as "Low Fat" like it's a healthly option.

That's not food, thats candy!

That's my biggest beef with the food companies. They are marketing to our renewed health consciousness and labelling everything either 'low fat', 'low carb', '0 trans fats', etc. I even read the label on Skippy PB the other day, it was labeled 0 trans fats, but on the list of ingreds. it still included hydrogenated oil, how can that be? I've started to ignore the labelling on the front and I go straight to the list of ingreds.

Joanne

getfit wrote:I even read the label on Skippy PB the other day, it was labeled 0 trans fats, but on the list of ingreds. it still included hydrogenated oil, how can that be?

Technically trans fats are only in "partially hydrogenated oil". If it's fully hydrogenated, there may actually be no (or very little) trans fat. That doesn't mean it's very healthy, though, because it's all saturated fat.

The other thing is that sometimes the serving sizes are so artificially small that something might have "0 trans fat", which really means less that 0.5 g per serving. If it doesn't say "Trans fat free", then it might have small amounts that don't add up to enough to be 0.5 g/serving.

Another beef of mine.... when products containing plant oils and/or partially hydrogenate oils say that they're "Cholesterol free". Plant food never have cholesterol, but the oils/fats can cause your body to produce more cholesterol.

I don't actually eat Vector (or anything pre-run ), but for many people a food that is high in sugar and low in fibre would be ideal as a pre-run food. Fibre is normally important, but before a long run it's the enemy...

I agree it would make a lousy snack, but as a pre-exercise fuel-up it looks okay...

getfit wrote:

Steve-O wrote:What really bugs me is how they label it as "Low Fat" like it's a healthly option.

That's not food, thats candy!

That's my biggest beef with the food companies. They are marketing to our renewed health consciousness and labelling everything either 'low fat', 'low carb', '0 trans fats', etc. I even read the label on Skippy PB the other day, it was labeled 0 trans fats, but on the list of ingreds. it still included hydrogenated oil, how can that be? I've started to ignore the labelling on the front and I go straight to the list of ingreds.

Joanne

you didn't buy it did you??

Once you taste the "all natural" stuff, I've noticed that the regular Kraft and skippy doesn't taste like PB at all... more like chemicals...

dgrant wrote:I don't actually eat Vector (or anything pre-run ), but for many people a food that is high in sugar and low in fibre would be ideal as a pre-run food. Fibre is normally important, but before a long run it's the enemy...

not necessarily... it depends on what your GI system is used to. if you're used to eating fibre regularly (no pun intended), you can have your normal oatmeal or cheerios or red river cereal or whatever for breakfast with no ill effects (and changing to no fibre might stress your system the opposite way, if you know what I mean).