The healthy cereal aisle is full of decisions...along with spiffy pitches for protein, healthy hearts, vitamin D, fruit, you name it. So it may come as a surprise that picking a better breakfast is as simple as 1, 2, 3, 4.

• For the basics, start here at No. 1.

• To see a few of our favorite healthy cereals, jump to No. 5.

• To wade through the cereal aisle's marketing blitz, jump to No. 6.

• For a chart including all our “Best Bite” healthy cereals, scroll down.

This article comes from Nutrition Action. We don't accept any paid advertising or corporate or government donations. Any products we recommend—like these “Best Bites”—have been vetted by our staff and are not advertisements by the manufacturers. They’re just healthy foods we think you’d like to know about!

1. Know your cereal serving sizes.

Never compare cereals before you check their serving sizes, which can vary from just 2/3 cup to more than twice that much (1½ cups). Why?

For cereals like Cheerios and most flakes, the Food and Drug Administration sets the serving size on the Nutrition Facts label as the fraction of a cup that comes closest to 40 grams (1.4 oz.). Our chart calls those “lighter” cereals.

For denser (“heavier”) cereals like raisin bran, granola, muesli, or shredded wheat, the serving is the fraction of a cup closest to 60 grams, or about 2 oz.

(Tip: A few granolas look lower in calories because they use the 30-gram serving size for snacks. Don’t be fooled.)

Bottom line: Many cereal servings are small, so if you want to know how much sugar, fiber, etc., is in your bowl, test it! Whip out a measuring cup or a kitchen scale and size up your usual pour.

2. A healthy cereal is heavy on whole grains.

It’s not just about getting whole grains, but also about avoiding refined grains and starches. The grains in our Best Bites are all—or nearly all—whole. Typically, that means at least the first two grain ingredients are whole.

If a label says “100% whole grain,” you’re all set. But a claim like “16 g whole grain” could mean there’s also, say, 8 grams of refined grain. Solution: Check the ingredient list to see which grains are whole:

• Wheat & corn. If it doesn’t say “whole” or “whole grain” wheat or corn (or flour), assume they’re refined. “Degerminated” corn means refined.
• Rice. Brown and black rice are whole grains. Just “rice”? Probably not.
• Oats & more. Oats, sprouted grains, quinoa, sorghum, and spelt may not always say “whole,” but they typically are.
• Bran. It’s the fiber-rich part of grains, so we count it as “whole” in our Best Bites.

Tip: Seeking a high-fiber cereal to stay regular? Look for whole wheat or oats (both have more fiber than brown rice or whole corn). Extra credit: Wheat bran or psyllium fiber beats processed fibers like chicory root, inulin, and soluble corn fiber.

3. A healthy cereal doesn't overdo added sugar.

Unless you’re talking about muesli or plain shredded wheat, it’s hard to find an appetizing cold cereal with zero added sugar. But you can keep a lid on it. A serving of our Best Bite healthy cereals has:

• No more than 6 grams of added sugar (lighter cereals), or
• No more than 9 grams of added sugar (heavier cereals)

4. A healthy cereal has no food dyes or risky low-calorie sweeteners.

Our Best Bites have no food dyes—they’re more common in kids’ cereals—or the low-calorie sweeteners sucralose, aspartame, or acesulfame potassium, all of which we rate as “avoid.”

5. Try some of our favorite healthy cereals that taste great.

These five cereals are just a sampling. For a chart including many more cereals that meet our Best Bite criteria, scroll down.

From left to right: 

• Whole Foods 365 Organic Bran Flakes: Lower in sugar than most bran flakes. Add your own bananas, berries, raisins, etc.
• Wheat Chex: The satisfyingly crispy squares of whole wheat are as welcome at snacktime as at breakfast.
• Kashi Organic Cinnamon Harvest: Think of Kashi’s shredded wheat cereals as unfrosted Mini Wheats for adults. Yum!
• Nature’s Path Organic Flax Plus Raisin Bran: Whole wheat, wheat bran, oat bran, raisins, flax seeds. Hello, crunch and fiber!
• Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Muesli: A yogurt topper or a shortcut to overnight oats. 

6. Don't be fooled by these healthy-looking cereal marketing ploys.

Cereals that feature fruit may not live up to their promises

It’s a well-worn page from the food marketer’s handbook: boxes featuring real foods like fruit, yogurt, or nuts that contain cereals with little or none.

Take new Special K Strawberry & Vanilla “Made with Yogurty Oat Clusters.”

• Strawberries? None. The red-tinged flakes probably get their hue from the cereal’s “vegetable juice for color.” (A clue that berries could be MIA is the “naturally flavored with other natural flavors” in finer print below the “Strawberry & Vanilla” name.)
• Yogurt? Little. The cereal is less than 2 percent “nonfat yogurt powder” that’s been “heat-treated after culturing” (which kills the yogurt’s cultures). With so little yogurt, you don’t get much calcium (a mere 10 milligrams per serving) or protein (just 4 grams).

“Special K is focused on bringing you real ingredients,” says the back of the box. Oh really?

Some "no added sugar" cereal schemes aren't much healthier

“No added sugar. Sweetened with fruit,” says Cascadian Farm Organic Mixed Berry Cereal. But check the fine print: It’s also “sweetened with dried date powder,” which isn’t much better than added sugar.

When health experts recommend eating less sugar and more fruit, they’re talking mostly whole fresh or frozen fruits. Those aren’t just rich in nutrients; they’re also low in calories per bite, so they make you feel full.

The takeaway: You’re better off with a low-sugar Best Bite cereal topped with sliced fresh or frozen fruit than a cereal with dried fruit or fruit powder.

Cascadian isn’t a Best Bite because its second grain ingredient is “rice” (not whole grain) and it has enough coconut oil to hit 3½ grams of saturated fat per serving. (Best Bites don’t top 2 grams.) In fact, it’s got more coconut oil than dried blueberries or dried strawberries.

Don’t bet on a sugary cereal for heart health

“Can help lower cholesterol as part of a heart healthy diet,” shouts the banner across Chocolate Cheerios.

According to the fine print below it, eating 3 grams a day of soluble oat fiber can reduce the risk of heart disease. The catch: the cereal has just “.75 grams per serving,” the fine print notes. So you’d have to eat four servings a day to lower your risk.

Don’t want Chocolate Cheerios for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack? Good call. Each serving has 10 grams of added sugar, so four servings hit 40 grams. That’s 80 percent of your daily 50-gram max.

Another heartbreaker: Kellogg’s Frosted Bran (9 grams added sugar) has a “Heart Healthy” heart and a claim about a lower risk of heart disease because it’s low in saturated fat and cholesterol. News flash: So are most other cereals. Instead, try unfrosted bran flakes like Whole Foods 365.

Cereal isn't the best source to rely on for your vitamin D

“Excellent source of vitamin D,” boasts Purely Elizabeth Cinnamon Raisin Almond Superfood Cereal.

Other than salmon and UV-light-exposed mushrooms, few foods are naturally high in vitamin D. Our main sources of vitamin D:

• Sunlight
• Supplements
• Fortified foods like dairy milk and some yogurts, cereals, and plant milks (they add 10 to 25 percent of the Daily Value)

As for cereals, Purely Elizabeth adds 25 percent of the vitamin D Daily Value and Cheerios adds 20 percent, but Total, Wheaties, and Special K Original add only 10 percent. No food adds 100 percent of a day’s vitamin D to a single serving. (The FDA’s rules don’t allow it, because you could get too much that way.)

So unless you’re eating four or more servings of D-fortified foods every day, choose a healthy cereal you like—with or without added vitamin D—and take a decent non-gummy multivitamin-mineral supplement to cover your bases.

Most granola is too sugary to be a healthy cereal

Granola’s base is often oats, so you can count on whole grains. But many granolas are no health food.

Sugary ones like Nature Valley Protein French Vanilla Granola—with 15 grams of added sugar and 270 calories per serving—verge on dessert for breakfast. And a serving of most granolas is just 2/3 cup or less, so they’re higher in calories per bite than shredded wheat or flake cereals. That makes them easier to overeat.

You can curb the sugar with Best Bites from KIND. Its Healthy Grains Dark Chocolate (240 calories) slashes the added sugar to 7 grams per 2/3 cup. And KIND’s new nut-based, less-sweet Zero Apple Cinnamon Nut Granola has no added sugar, thanks largely to allulose.

Note: The Zeros are no lower in calories than a typical granola. It’s just that the snack-size 1/3-cup serving (30 grams) on their label is half as much as most granolas’ cereal-size (60-gram) serving.

Do you need extra protein in a healthy cereal?

Protein-packed cereals are everywhere, but many come with caveats. For example:

• Eat Your Mouth Off Cereal. Kellogg’s new high-protein, low-carb cereal is made with soy, pea, and lentil protein. But it’s sweetened with sucralose, so it’s disqualified from a Best Bite.
• Special K Protein or High Protein Chocolate Almond. The second ingredient is “rice”—not whole grain—so neither is a Best Bite.
• Wheaties Protein. Its coconut oil supplies 4 grams of saturated fat—twice our Best Bite max.
• Kashi Go. Four of its 7 varieties are low enough in added sugar and high enough in whole grain for Best Bites...and they taste great. They also have 9 to 13 grams of protein.

Want more protein in any healthy cereal-based breakfast? Bring in some reinforcements:

• Mix cereal with dairy or soy milk (8 grams of protein per cup), or
• Use cereal to top plain low-fat Greek yogurt or cottage cheese (15 grams of protein per 5 oz.)