Review: Nestle Milo Cereal

Let's review- Milo Cereal!

What is in it?

Whole Grain Cereals (50%) [Wheat (34%), Corn (16%)], Sugar, Formulated Supplementary Food Base: MILO (10%) [Malt Extract (Barley and/or Rice), Milk Powder, Sugar, Cocoa, Minerals (Calcium, Iron), Vitamins (C, B3, B6, B2, D, B12), Emulsifier (Soy Lecithin)], Wheat Flour, Cocoa, Malt Extract (Barley and/or Rice), Skimmed Milk Powder, Sunflower Oil, Emulsifier (Soy Lecithin), Flavours (Chocolate and Vanilla), Salt.

Allergens

Contains: Wheat, Gluten, Milk, Soy
May contain: Oats, Rye

​Cost: $1.42 per 100g

Compared to:

• Regular Weet-bix at $0.50- $0.70 per 100g.
• Little Kid's Weet-Bix at $1.13 per 100g
• Rice Bubbles $1.59-$2.16 per 100g
• Coles Rice Puffs $0.78 per 100g
• Coles Corn Flakes $0.48 per 100g
• Most cereals range from $0.50-$3.00 per 100g.

What we like:

• Low sodium- only 120mg per 100g. Lower than most cereals we have reviewed. 
• It has added iron (3mg per serve) which is great for our kiddos that don't like meat and struggle to get iron rich foods into their diet over the day
• Low in saturated fat (1.5g per 100g) which we would expect for a breakfast cereal. Although this is higher than many others we have reviewed. 
• Calcium- 530mg per 100g- usually we are keeping an eye out for this for our dairy free families BUT this cereal contains milk as an allergen so it isn't an option for you guys (sorry!).

What we like less:

• Lower in fibre than we would like- it only has 2.6g per serve and we would like to see it above 3g 
• It is very high in added sugar with 23.9g per 100g. We ideally want less than 15g to keep it in the low to moderate range (less than 5g per 100g is low and less than 15g is moderate). To put this into context visually this is close to 2 teaspoons of added sugar per 30g serve..... and most people are having more than 30g in a bowl!

Let's compare the sugar in these to other cereals:

• VitaBrits (0.4g per 100g)
• Cheerios Low Sugar Vanilla O's (4.1g per 100g)
• Rice bubbles (8.4g per 100g)
• Corn Flakes (8.9g per 100g)
• Cheerios Original (14.6g per 100g)
• Weetbix Bites (21.8g per 100g)
• Nutrigrain (24g per 100g)
• Cocopops (32.2g per 100g)

Other things to consider:

• Protein- 8.4g per 100g of protein. This may be useful for some families, but most children in Australia easily meet if not exceed their protein requirements so parents don't need to go looking for ways to add more in!

The Take Home: 

Whether this is a good breakfast option for your family really does depend on your individual needs!

However, because of the very high amount of added sugar, these wouldn't be our first or even second choice for regularly offered cereal, if there are other options your kids will eat.

If you want to learn how to review cereals yourself, check out our new resource on 'Choosing Cereals for Toddlers' (you can check it out here)!