15 Breakfast Cereals With More Sugar Than a Doughnut

It’s often said breakfast is the most important meal of the day — and you can bet the cereal industry agrees. It’s a $37 billion market.

The diversity of options can be overwhelming; there are hundreds. Many sugar-coated and chocolate-covered varieties are marketed toward kids while others target health-conscious adults.

Unfortunately, many breakfast cereals you might think are healthy are also overflowing with added sugar — something federal dietary guidelines say “there is very little leeway” for in a healthy diet.

Following are several cereals which have more sugar in a single serving than a plain doughnut, which the USDA says contains 10.9 total grams of sugar.

Honey Nut Cheerios

Serving size: 1 cup

Total sugar per serving: 12 grams

Added sugar per serving: 12 grams

Added sugar as a percentage of recommended daily value: 24%

Honey Nut Cheerios are a well-known variety of the popular General Mills cereal. Its recognizable bee mascot went unnamed until 2000 when a fifth-grader came up with the name Buzz.

Apple Cinnamon Cheerios

Serving size: 1 cup

Total sugar per serving: 12 grams

Added sugar per serving: 12 grams

Added sugar as a percentage of recommended daily value: 24%

The apple-cinnamon variety of Cheerios is advertised as a snack for toddlers or quick kids’ breakfast, although also as having benefits for cholesterol — not something kids tend to care about.

Frosted Flakes

Serving size: 1 cup

Total sugar per serving: 12 grams

Added sugar per serving: 12 grams

Added sugar as a percentage of recommended daily value: 24%

These are, in the words of mascot Tony the Tiger, “gr-r-reat!” The secret is a not-small amount of sugar — which didn’t used to be a secret. From their debut in 1952 until 1983, they were actually called “Sugar Frosted Flakes.”

Frosted Mini Wheats

Serving size: 25 biscuits

Total sugar per serving: 12 grams

Added sugar per serving: 12 grams

Added sugar as a percentage of recommended daily value: 24%

For those who prefer their sugar coating generously applied over shredded wheat, Kellogg’s still has you covered. You can get the exact same amount of sugar in these as the first two cereals on this list, even if the mascot (whose name is Mini, and who has no weaknesses) isn’t nearly as charming.

Raisin Bran Crunch

Serving size: 1 cup

Total sugar per serving: 19 grams

Added sugar per serving: 13 grams

Added sugar as a percentage of recommended daily value: 26%

Raisin Bran Crunch has among the highest total sugar content on this list, but some of that is attributable to the natural sugar in raisins. While fruits are generally high in sugar, they are a much healthier source that comes paired with fiber and other valuable nutrients in the cereal, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

Added sugars, meanwhile, basically just make things taste better. And at 13 grams, this cereal has plenty of those too.

Sweet Dreams Blueberry Midnight

Serving size: 1 cup

Total sugar per serving: 16 grams

Added sugar per serving: 13 grams

Added sugar as a percentage of recommended daily value: 27%

If you somehow didn’t hit your limit on added sugars for the day, a small bowl of this recently launched Post cereal will be happy to take care of more than a quarter of that — right before bed.

It’s “specially designed to support a good sleep routine and a fresh start to the next day,” Post says, formulated with a “nighttime herbal blend of lavender and chamomile,” then fortified with vitamins — and more than one spoonful of sugar.

Sweet Dreams Honey Moonglow Cereal

Serving size: 1 cup

Total sugar per serving: 13 grams

Added sugar per serving: 12 grams

Added sugar as a percentage of recommended daily value: 24%

Take away the natural fruit sugars of the Blueberry Midnight variety of this new Post cereal and add a bit of honey and vanilla. Then, you end up with “only” 13 grams of sugar in this variety, which is supposed to “support natural melatonin production.”

Kellogg’s Special K Red Berries Cereal

Serving size: 1 cup

Total sugar per serving: 11 grams

Added sugar per serving: 10 grams

Added sugar as a percentage of recommended daily value: 20%

Freeze-dried strawberries deliver a tiny bit of the sugar in your bowl of this “crunchy fruity goodness,” but the majority of it is added in. Red Berries is just one of more than a dozen available flavors.

Post Raisin Bran

Serving size: 1 1/4 cup

Total sugar per serving: 20 grams

Added sugar per serving: 9 grams

Added sugar as a percentage of recommended daily value: 19%

This Post “breakfast and recipe ingredient staple” has been around since World War II. It’s not to be confused with the Kellogg’s version of the exact same name.

There is a third, less-known Raisin Bran, too — the original. Skinner’s held the trademark up until a court decided the name was too generic.

Honey Ohs

Serving size: 1 cup

Total sugar per serving: 18 grams

Added sugar per serving: 18 grams

Added sugar as a percentage of recommended daily value: 36%

“There’s something in the middle of Post Honey Ohs! cereal that’ll make you say, ‘Oh!’,” the cereal’s website boasts.

We’ll give you a hint. It’s white, starts with “s” and ends with “ugar.” Honey is a natural sugar — but counts as an added sugar for nutritional purposes unless it is the sole ingredient, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

Oatmeal Crisp

Serving size: 1 cup

Total sugar per serving: 14 grams

Added sugar per serving: 13 grams

Added sugar as a percentage of recommended daily value: 26%

Oatmeal Crisp is a “complex blend” of sugar, brown sugar syrup, brown sugar, corn syrup, honey (a sugar) … oh, and “crispy flakes with whole grain oats, crunchy almonds, and delicious oat clusters.”

Honeycomb

Serving size: 1 3/4 cup

Total sugar per serving: 13 grams

Added sugar per serving: 12 grams

Added sugar as a percentage of recommended daily value: 25%

Post really skimped on the marketing for Honeycomb; its website simply says “Honeycomb is a unique and playful cereal that lets you be YOU!” Who wouldn’t prefer that to all the cereals that force you to be someone else?

Quaker Instant Oatmeal Raisin, Date & Walnut

Serving size: 1 packet

Total sugar per serving: 11 grams

Added sugar per serving: 7 grams

Added sugar as a percentage of recommended daily value: 14%

Most of this hot cereal’s seven ingredients fit right in the prominent flavor name on the front of the box. The missing ones? Sugar, salt and cinnamon.

Corn Pops

Serving size: 1 1/3 cup

Total sugar per serving: 15 grams

Added sugar per serving: 15 grams

Added sugar as a percentage of recommended daily value: 30%

Corn Pops, launched in 1950 after 14 years in development, has been through a bit of an identity crisis over the years. It was Sugar Pops for most of three decades, then Sugar Corn Pops for a few years. It was changed to Corn Pops in 1984, then to Pops in 2006, then very quickly back to Corn Pops. But Kellogg’s still has a few variations left to try: How about just “Sugar” or perhaps “Corn Sugar”?

Cinnamon Toast Crunch

Serving size: 1 cup

Total sugar per serving: 12 grams

Added sugar per serving: 12 grams

Added sugar as a percentage of recommended daily value: 24%

Even if the box isn’t, Cinnamon Toast Crunch’s website is relatively forthcoming about its sugar content.

“Every crispy square is blasted with CINNADUST, that irresistible mix of real cinnamon and sugar,” it says. And if you have it with milk, “slurp up the CINNAMILK, the sweet and awesomely tasty cereal milk at the bottom of your bowl.”