Marketing can be awesomely powerful.
A good marketer could sell catnip to a dog if need be. We've all been hoodwinked into buying some sort of product at one time or another in our lives that turned out to be a dud or a downright lie. Sea Monkeys comes to mind. I can remember being so disappointed when my sea monkeys, bought with a zillion box tops of Captain Crunch, turned out to be nothing more than brine shrimp i.e., fish food.
It appears that Wheaties, the breakfast of champions, is now spending millions of dollars in an attempt to brainwash people -- specifically athletes -- into thinking a bowl of sugar is good and will enhance athletic performance.
Don't let the hype fool you sportsfans. Cereal grains are nasty stuff. Grains are chock full of antinutrients and when refined for consumption and fully digested, are nothing more than simple sugar.
Sugar is extremely caustic to the human body. It is responsible for a host of inflammatory ills and is linked to damage to the endothelium.
The endothelium is the thin layer of cells that line the interior surface of blood vessels. Not a good thing to mess with.
A cup of Wheaties has 24 grams of carbohydrates (essentially sugar). The typical adult has a only a few grams, more or less, of sugar in her total blood volume - slightly less than a teaspoonful. (My co-author and friend Michael R. Eades M.D. wrote a great blog post on this issue.) But who eats a mere cup of cereal for breakfast - especially an athlete? When I was a wee lad, I typically ate 2-3 bowls of cereal. (And as you now know, Captain Crunch was my favorite.) I'm surprised my blood isn't sugar after all the cereal I ate as a kid, not to mention the soda, pancakes, buns, etc.
Wheaties cereal is fake food. In fact, I wouldn't call it food at all. I've never seen a Wheaties tree or a cereal bush. All commercially made cereal is among the worst foods one can eat and is especially bad for children. And at five to seven dollars a box, you're paying top dollar to kill yourself. You could buy 3 dozen, muscle-building, bone densifying eggs for that price.
The real breakfast of champions would consist of real foods - meat, eggs, fish, vegetables and fruit - foods that actually exist in real life.
Be a real champion. Eat real foods. Don't be fooled by nutritional sea-monkeys!