Nestlé Celebrates National Cereal Day

Healthy wholegrains are an integral part of the most important meal of the day: breakfast.

We all know the old adage: breakfast is the most important meal of the day. After all, breakfast fuels the body after an overnight fast and kick-starts the metabolism.

But it’s important not just to eat any breakfast but to choose a meal that’s packed full of essential nutrients including calcium, fibre and a variety of vitamins and minerals including B1 and B6. And that is exactly where cereals come in.

“Cereals are a great choice for breakfast,” says Italian-registered Nestlé dietician Mirko Cirolli. “In fact, they represent the base of the Mediterranean diet pyramid, which recommends which foods should be eaten at every meal – and wholegrains are among them.”

To mark National Cereal Day on 7 March, Nestlé is helping to ‘make breakfast better every day’ by underlining the fact that whole grain is the main ingredient across its delicious range of cereals, including Nestlé Fitness, Cheerios, Nesquik, Lion, Golden Nuggets, Oats & More, Curiously Cinnamon and Corn Flakes Gluten Free.

“If you skip breakfast, then you are forcing your body to use other sources of energy to survive – such as protein from lean meat –which often sets off hunger attacks later in the afternoon or evening. This can lead you to binge on unhealthy foods later on during the day,” Mr Cirolli explains.

With this in mind, complex carbohydrates – like wholegrains – are ideal breakfast foods, as they allow for the storage of new glycogen inside the liver and muscles without sudden changes in insulin, in the same way that the proteins present provide the amino acids necessary for protein synthesis.

“Beyond that, cereals also provide a considerable amount of fibre, which is important for the regularisation of bowel movements, to protect cells from oxidative stress. They also provide the necessary energy to maintain the health of our microbiota, which is increasingly in the spotlight because it is involved in the genesis of many diseases,” Mr Cirolli says, adding that cereals are also rich in B Vitamins, which are essential for the maintenance of cellular functions, iron and calcium.

“So, on this day – National Cereal Day – we recommend cereal as a fantastic family-friendly breakfast that will set you up for the day. Just be sure to look out for the green banner on NestléBreakfast Cereals which shows that they contain 8g of whole grain per serving,” the nutritionist adds.