You Might Want To Rethink Cinnabon Cinnamon Roll Cereal. Here's Why
Anyone who has ever walked through a shopping mall knows there are few better or more alluring scents than the sugary sweet smell of a Cinnabon. And for as delicious as the iconic treats smell, they taste even better. Fluffy, chewy dough wrapped around swirls of cinnamon sugar and smothered in gooey frosting? Yes, please. But sometimes the craving for a massive cinnamon roll hits when you're nowhere near a kiosk — and thus, Cinnabon cereal was created.
Released by Kellogg's in 2010, the wildly popular cereal looks exactly like mini cinnamon rolls (minus the icing). Not only is it an easy and convenient way to satisfy your sweet tooth at home, but at 120 calories per one cup serving, it's also a much lighter alternative to the 880-calorie Cinnabon (per the Cinnabon Nutritional Guide). However, just because it's lower in calories doesn't mean that the Cinnabon cereal is a healthy breakfast choice. Here's why you might want to think twice before pouring it into your bowl.
It's mostly just sugar
What makes that bowl of mini Cinnabons so crave-worthy is exactly what makes it not so great for you: the sugar. Eat This, Not That! ranked the Kellogg's cereal as one of the worst cereals you can eat, thanks to the fact that 40 percent of the calories in every serving come from sugar. Yikes. It might have less than an actual cinnamon roll, but at 12 grams of sugar per cup, the Cinnabon cereal actually has more sugar than a glazed Krispy Kreme donut, Delish reports. It's hardly a healthy option for your morning fuel.
Plus, the cereal is full of more than just sugar, Eat This, Not That warns. It also contains artificial dyes and hydrogenated oils, neither of which are doing your body any good. According to Healthline, consuming too much hydrogenated oil, for instance, can mess with your blood sugar, cause inflammation, and even lead to poor heart health.