Well...personally (probably coming from my experience with BFL and weight training nutrition) I don't find very many cold cereals to be 'healthy' - with the exception of All-Bran and Fiber One.
Most of them are pretty high in sugar and very low in fiber (GrapeNuts included in this unfortunately) = empty calories.
Old fashioned oatmeal is a MUCH better choice and is actually quite yummy!
At the BFL/Bodybuilding forum, I posted a really great article called "Foods that Make you Look Great Nekkid" today...this was listed under "The Bad Stuff":
Quote:
Flavored Oatmeal — Go to your pantry right now and get out your oatmeal. If you took out a colorful box full of little kiddy packets of peaches ‘n cream oatmeal, do yourself a favor and kick that --- to the curb! As stated above, we think oatmeal is one the best carb sources for bodybuilders, but the flavored, prepackaged variety sucks.
Look at the ingredients, which are listed in order of quantity. Sugar is usually the second ingredient in these girly oatmeal packets. Then you have other crap like salt, hydrogenated vegetable oils, maltodextrin, and partially hydrogenated soybean oil.
To top it off, the oats used in flavored oatmeal are usually more finely ground than healthy, old fashioned oatmeal. This means the GI could be higher based on the extra processing. The list of ugly ingredients goes on and varies a little with flavoring, but the lesson is simple: don’t eat this stuff if you want to look good nekid.
White Bread, Bagels and Rice Cakes — It’s hard to believe, but back in the 80s and early 90s, diet "experts" told people to eat as much of this stuff as they wanted. Since rice cakes are fat free, you can’t get fat, right? Wrong! Now the country is full of overweight diabetics. Coincidence? I don’t think so!
One representative of the Glycemic Research Institute even stated that eating a plain rice cake stimulated fat storage like ten bowls of sugar. Bagels aren’t quite as bad but are best avoided. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re eating healthy by consuming these things.
Most Breakfast Cereals — To us, cold breakfast cereals, even many of the brands touted as "healthy," are pure physique killers. Cereal is breakfast candy, nothing more, nothing less. In fact, corn flakes have a GI rating even worse than white bread! And how about these cereals that give you "energy", like Grape Nuts? Yep, at 47 carbs per teeny tiny serving (and what bodybuilder would eat one serving anyway?), most people would be in an insulin-induced coma by lunch.
All that said, there are a couple of good cereals out there, but not many. All Bran and Fiber One make decent oatmeal replacements, just eat some protein with them. All Bran Extra Fiber only has 50 calories a serving and 13 grams of fiber, almost four times as much as oatmeal!
Okay, okay. I know what you're gonna say - "I'm not a bodybuilder, I just want to lose fat". No matter - the best thing you can do if you're trying to lose weight is to cut out as much sugar as possible and when you eat carbohydrates, stick to the complex/unprocessed ones whenever possible...
I like what Pam Brown says regarding sugar: "Sugar should be avoided. Sugar spikes your body’s insulin level and puts your body into “fat storage” mode. Sugar creates cravings for more sugar." So true!
Don't get me wrong - I was RAISED on cold cereal (Chex, Special K, Corn Flakes) but they are Free Day fare for me now (eliminating cold cereal (and other processed carbs) from my daily fare and saving it for a once-in-awhile treat was a MAJOR KEY of getting me from a size 10 to a size 4 over the last year and a half!).
Just my two cents here...I know that the cereal manufacturers like to tout their products as 'healthy eating' but remember, that's marketing...not necessarily the whole truth! Think about it - look at the portion size on the box. How many of you eat *just* the portion size and stay satisfied? Or (like I used to do and would still do if I kept cereal in the house!) do you eat a couple of large bowls, thinking 'it's okay, it's grains!' or 'it's better than having waffles'?
Just my two centavos