10 Of The Unhealthiest Breakfast Cereals You Can Buy At The Grocery Store

It's said that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. While you may be tempted to hit snooze and crash through your busy morning with only an iced coffee to fuel you, there are lots of benefits to eating something early in the morning instead of just relying on caffeine. Not only does eating breakfast keep you from hitting a wall too early, but it helps kickstart your metabolism, keeping your body running smoothly like the engine that it is.

Of course, that depends on what you're feeding it to start the day. If you're feeding it a greasy breakfast sandwich, all that meat and cheese can leave you feeling sluggish rather than energized. Or, if you're opting for a quick bowl of cereal and milk (or eating it dry — no judgement), you might find yourself starving an hour later and facing a sugar crash.

With this in mind, we decided to look at the unhealthiest breakfast cereals you can find in your grocery store. Despite being marketed as "part of a balanced breakfast" (and let's be real — it's usually a full breakfast you see in those commercials, with the cereal bowl acting more as decoration than providing much nutritional value), these cereals are anything but. When determining their healthiness, we looked at grams of sugar, presence of food dyes, and, on a couple of occasions, fat content. If you're shopping for the kiddos in your life, don't be tempted by these brightly colored boxes — you might not like what lurks inside.

Any breakfast cereal that relies on sprinkles and marshmallows as a selling point is probably not going to be a healthy food. Lucky Charms Rainbow Sprinkles is no different. In fact, the colorful cereal cranks things up a notch by changing those cereal pieces — the second fiddlers to the marshmallow stars — into crunchy pieces laden with sprinkles and birthday cake flavor.

Lucky Charms likes to tout the fact that each serving contains whole grains — 15 grams in this flavor, to be exact, as well as vitamins and minerals. However, those numbers do some clever work in hiding the true culprits behind this saccharine breakfast treat. In a 1-cup serving of Lucky Charms Rainbow Sprinkles, you also get 12 grams of added sugar coming from ingredients like corn syrup, dextrose, and sugar. The cereal also contains Red 40, a controversial synthetic food dye that may cause behavioral issues in children and can cause allergic reactions in both children and adults. "Magically delicious?" Sure, but perhaps not the healthiest choice.

Cookies for breakfast? While we enjoy a biscotti with a cup of coffee as much as the next person, pouring an entire bowl of miniature chocolate chip cookies seems like overkill, not to mention a surefire road to a sugar crash within an hour or two. While this Chips Ahoy! cereal isn't quite as vibrant as Lucky Charms Rainbow Sprinkles, don't let its humble appearance fool you.

In a single serving of this breakfast cereal (which, according to the back of the box is 1⅓ cup), you'll be getting 14 grams of added sugar, about 29% of the recommended daily amount. While a small amount of kudos can be given to Chips Ahoy! for providing some valuable minerals like thiamin, iron, zinc, and vitamin B6, it only offers a measly one gram of protein, meaning that you'll definitely be hungry after scarfing this down in the morning. For something that's still sweet but definitely heartier (and better for you), why not make our recipe for superfood overnight oats? Prepped the night before, it's almost as easy as pouring a bowl of cereal — and infinitely tastier.

We've had a cookie-based cereal, and a marshmallow-based cereal, but how about we combine the two and throw some chocolate in for good measure? We have to imagine that this cereal was meant to be used as a trail mix or in a jazzed up version of Rice Krispie treats, because we can't imagine tucking into a bowl of this stuff first thing in the morning and thinking it's a good way to start the day.

Honey Maid S'mores offers 1 cup as a serving size, and in that 1 cup is a staggering 17 grams of sugar. In fact, this breakfast cereal is such a fan of the sweet stuff, it's the first ingredient, even ahead of corn meal and whole grain oat flour. Those 17 grams also come in the form of other sugars like molasses, fructose, honey, and corn syrup, plus the dextrose used in the marshmallows. Overconsumption of added sugar can lead to higher blood pressure, weight gain, inflammation, diabetes, and fatty liver disease. While there are vitamins and minerals in this cereal, they seem like an afterthought to something that is clearly a dessert parading as the most important meal of the day.

The third cereal on our list to be inspired by a cookie (Honey Maid Graham Crackers count, okay?) is OREO Puffs. The beloved sandwich cookie has been an inspiration for many a sweet treat, so perhaps it was only a matter of time before it got shrunk down to cereal size. In the case of OREO Puffs, the iconic black and white cookie is reinvented into a crunchy, dark-hued sphere and sprinkled throughout with marshmallows. As you read on, you'll note that marshmallows are a pretty big indicator of the healthfulness of a cereal, or lack thereof.

In a 1½ cup serving, you will be treated to some vitamins and minerals and a whopping 2 grams of protein (that's double a lot of other cereals on this list). However, you'll also be digging into 16 grams of added sugar. And boy, do these OREO Puffs like their sugar. Sugar, corn syrup, dextrose, and invert sugar are all present on the list of ingredients. If you must buy this cereal, we suggest avoiding using it for breakfast and embracing how it should be: As a dessert, perhaps used in something like these vintage-style dirt cups.

Trix has a pretty storied history of going back and forth before sticking with the colorful, fruit-shaped cereal we know and love. The cereal debuted in 1954 with simple round shapes in just three colors. In 1991, those shapes were changed to the iconic fruit pieces and more colors had been added. Then, 2007 saw General Mills switch Trix back to the spheres before going back yet again to the fruit-shaped pieces in 2018, which is where they remain today. Then, the company said they would remove artificial dyes from the cereal in 2015 before changing course and bringing them back in 2017.

Why all that history? So we can let you know that the current iteration of Twix, complete with artificial colors and puffy fruit-shaped pieces, contains 12 grams of added sugar per 1¼ cup serving as well as controversial synthetic food dyes. In a box of Trix you'll find Red 40, Blue 1, and Yellow 6. Red 40, as previously mentioned, can cause allergies and has been linked to behavioral issues in children, as does Blue 1. Yellow 6 (also called Sunset Yellow), one of the most commonly consumed food dyes, can also cause allergic reactions.

From cookies to candy bars, it shouldn't come as a shock to anyone that Reese's Puffs aren't exactly health-conscious. The brand behind the iconic Halloween candy teamed up with General Mills to create this peanut butter and chocolate breakfast cereal which, while tasting pretty darn close to the real deal, is not something you should be spooning up every morning.

Thanks to the peanut butter included in this cereal (Reese's Peanut Butter to be exact, one of the unhealthiest peanut butters on the market), a single serving (one cup) contains 5 grams of fat, including 1 gram of unsaturated fat. That's more than any other breakfast cereal in this article. In terms of sugar, you can find 12 grams here which, while not great, isn't quite as bad as some others. However, the vitamin and mineral content — usually the saving grace of any fortified breakfast cereal — is pretty minimal here, capping out at 20% of your daily recommended value for a variety of nutrients. All in all, this is maybe a once in a while breakfast treat, but shouldn't be a pantry mainstay.

And we're back with our familiar friend, the marshmallow. While Froot Loops are hardly considered a healthy breakfast (and, despite their colors, they all taste the same), this variety adds even more sugar to the bowl with the help of marshmallows. Echoing the fruity flavors (or flavor) of the cereal itself, the marshmallows come in colorful varieties like pink and green cherries, purple blueberries, orange oranges, yellow and green lemon-limes, and aqua and pink pineapples. Although the shapes of the marshmallows may vary.

While Froot Loops in Canada is much plainer in appearance, thanks to the removal of artificial food dyes, the Kellogg's cereal in the United States is still rife with assorted artificial colors, including Yellow 5, Red 40, Yellow 6, and Blue 1. The subject of food dyes has become a pretty hot topic among concerned consumers, but even if you're not familiar with the potential dangers of them, here's a number that is concerning: 16 grams of added sugar per 1⅓ cup serving.

You thought you had seen the most grams of sugar per serving with the Honey Maid S'mores breakfast cereal — and so had we. But that was until we came across the winner (or loser, depending on your perspective) in the sugar showdown: Honey Smacks. The simple cereal with the Dig 'Em frog mascot boasts an astonishing 18 grams of added sugar per serving, or about 36% of your recommended daily amount. Unlike other fortified cereals, there are also almost no vitamins or minerals in Honey Smacks, making them a questionable choice to appear in the breakfast cereal aisle at all.

Introduced in the 1950s (and occasionally referred to as Sugar Smacks), Honey Smacks is known for its high sugar content. In a 2008 Consumers Report, Honey Smacks was singled out for containing 50% sugar and parents were advised to choose another breakfast item to feed their children. Within Honey Smacks, honey doesn't even rank as the primary sugary ingredient; instead, it falls behind sugar and glucose syrup.

A cereal made out of pillows of chocolate was never going to win awards for being healthy, and Kellogg's Krave cereal is no different. Like Reese's Puffs, Krave is the only cereal on this list to have a notable amount of fat — 4.5 grams, to be exact, including 1 gram of saturated fat. This is likely due to the chocolate flavored filling, which is the first ingredient on the list. Made with sugar, soybean oil, palm oil, and whey, it's clear where that number is coming from.

Like other breakfast cereals, Krave tries to maneuver around its high sugar content by touting its whole grain status, as well as the presence of vitamins and minerals. There is an impressive amount of thiamin (60%), which can contribute to a healthy metabolism and help boost your immune system. There's also 30% of your daily recommended amount of iron, which increases your energy levels and aids brain health. However, a single cup serving of Krave cereal also has 14 grams of added sugar and 15 grams of sugar total. That's not exactly what we're looking for when we're craving (or Krave-ing) breakfast.

With fall on the horizon, there's plenty of opportunity to indulge in the classic flavor combo of apples and cinnamon. However, you might not want to satisfy your craving with Apple Jacks cereal, particularly the version that contains — you guessed it — marshmallows. These gelatin-filled little buggers are back to turn a so-so breakfast cereal into a veritable sugar bomb.

While the OG flavor has 13 grams of sugar — pretty moderate for a brightly colored breakfast cereal like this — the version with marshmallows adds another four grams for 17 grams of added sugar per 1 ⅓ cup serving. In fact, sugar is the very first ingredient in Apple Jacks with Marshmallows, even before the corn flour blend and wheat flour that make up the cereal itself. The cereal also contains a bunch of synthetic food dyes, like Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, and Blue 1. If you're worried about sugar and food dyes and have to have that apple cinnamon flavor in the form of a breakfast cereal, maybe try Apple Cinnamon Cheerios, instead.