Are reduced-sugar cereals worth it?

With the words "reduced sugar" blaring on the boxes, a relatively small, high-profile wave of breakfast options has been rolling onto store shelves since last May. You can find the new counterparts with similar packaging parked near their original versions. A.C. Nielsen data show that sales in the "ready-to-eat cereals with less-sugar claims" category were down as of Jan. 22, compared with a similar time period ending in October 2004.

Did moms and dads get the nutritional upper hand they were looking for? A study released last month confirms that the more added sugars young children consume daily - like those found in sweetened cereals and sodas, as opposed to natural sugars in fruit - the less they tend to eat foods with the nutrients they need.

Given the importance of the question, we invited some young people and a nutrition expert to breakfast for a taste test. We wondered whether kids could spot the difference between cereal types. We looked at what's in the manufacturers' reduced-sugar cereals and at their comparative costs.

With the results in, we're not so sure.

No. 1 cereal manufacturer Kellogg found that the taste and texture of its reduced-sugar Frosted Flakes and Froot Loops could be maintained with one-third the sugar, along with fillers and binders that count as added carbohydrates. General Mills managed "75 percent Less Sugar" versions of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Trix and Cocoa Puffs by using Splenda. Post Cereals' reduced-sugar Fruity Pebbles has one-half the sugar per serving, using sucralose and added carbohydrates as well.

While the new cereal versions succeed in cutting back on sugar, they do not come with the benefit of fewer calories. Reduced-sugar cereals also do not come cheap. The cereals we tested cost more per ounce than their original versions, although that fact is not obvious. Watchful shoppers will notice that original and reduced-sugar cereals come in the same-size boxes, but those boxes can differ in total weight by as much as six ounces. And reduced-sugar cereals don't seem to go on sale.

Nothing beats the bottom line of a young palate, however.

So we asked five kids, and University of Maryland nutrition professor Mark A. Kantor, to help us out. Madeline Cuddihy, 11, and Michael Kramer, 9, are both from Silver Spring, Md.; Thomas Lam and Jennie Yun are 8 years old, from Springfield, Va. Dave Timothy Sharp, 9, lives in Washington. On a recent morning, without the benefit of milk or parental input, the testers munched their way through 12 sweetened, ready-to-eat cereals - five examples of original brands and their reduced-sugar versions, and two new Kellogg's "lightly sweetened" brands. The cereals were dispensed from plain brown lunch bags.

Among Frosted Flakes, Cocoa Puffs, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Trix and Fruity Pebbles, there was no clear favorite. Half the testers correctly identified which of the five sets of cereals had less sugar, and two of the kids decided that the reduced-sugar cereals tasted the same as their originals.

The majority of the testers favored the regular sweetened cereals in our blind test. In all the testers' written comments, the original cereals tasted "good," "natural," "sweet and great," "better" and "the bomb."

Two young testers said they preferred the reduced-sugar versions of Cocoa Puffs and Trix, but they noted those samples' comparative lack of crunch or sweetness. Another couple of kids described those same cereals as "too fruity" or "too weird."

Kantor, the lone adult member of the panel, says that "the kids are absolutely correct that cereals made with 'real' sugar are better-tasting. Even manufacturers agree that no artificial sweetener tastes exactly like sugar." Sucralose comes closer than some others, he says, because its chemical structure is similar to sugar and it does not leave an aftertaste, like saccharin and acesulfame-K.

At the end of the morning, none of the testers would say they'd rather eat the reduced-sugar cereals on a regular basis.

As of last week, Jennie was eating a "good for you" brand at her house. Thomas and Dave were enjoying their usual bowls of original Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Michael and his family hadn't tasted Cocoa Puffs before, so the panel provided an opportunity that, as it turns out, they won't re-create at their kitchen table: "I actually was glad to try them in that setting - and not in our house," says Michael's mom, Jill. (In truth, Michael and his 5-year-old brother, David, aren't big cereal eaters anyway.)

Maddy had obviously reconsidered, though, and asked her parents to put reduced-sugar Cocoa Puffs on the family's grocery list late last month.