5 Reasons Nutella Should Be Banned From Your Breakfast Table

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Lately, I’ve been noticing a lot of love online for Nutella’s FB page. It’s called “The Nutella Breakfast Table.” As they state on their page, they don’t want anyone posting anything that they wouldn’t want said at their breakfast table. As I assume they’d be dining on Nutella, I’ll say it here instead.
Nutella is nutritionally void and shouldn’t be at the breakfast table.
And it’s a shame because Nutella does such great work helping fund school lunch programs and bringing awareness to the number of kids going to school without breakfast. But this can’t make up for the fact that they are giving kids Nutella for breakfast.
This “hazelnut spread” that looks suspiciously like thick chocolate sauce (or a spreadable candy bar) is healthwashed to pieces as a healthy breakfast option for kids.  It’s not breakfast, it’s a dessert and a questionable one at that. Call a dessert a dessert and move on, or be sued!
In the United States, Ferrero, maker of Nutella, was sued in a class action lawsuit for false advertising that led some to believe that Nutella carries nutritional and health benefits, being touted as ‘part of a nutritious breakfast’. They were sued for healthwashing! In April 2012, they paid $3 million to customers who were part of the claim. The settlement also required Ferrero to make changes to Nutella’s labelling and marketing.

What exactly these changes were are unclear, as they are clearly still healthwashing the heck out of this product.

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Nutella Ingredients: sugar, modified palm oil, hazelnuts, cocoa, skimmed milk powder, whey powder, lecithin, and vanillin
Nutritional Breakdown: Nutella contains 70% saturated fat and processed sugar by weight. A two-tablespoon (37 gram) serving of Nutella contains 200 calories, including 99 calories from 11 grams of fat (3.5g of which are saturated) and 80 calories from 21 grams of sugar. In addition, the spread contains 15mg of sodium and 2g of protein per serving.

You read that correctly. Two tablespoons of Nutella contains 21 grams of sugar.
There’s no reason breakfast can’t be both healthy and delicious, but serving up sugar, modified vegetable oils and processed chocolate in the morning just isn’t the way to go.

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Five reasons Nutella should be banned from your breakfast table:
1. The first ingredient is sugar.
Despite the lovely visual of hazelnuts tumbling across the screen in the television commercial, the first ingredient in Nutella is plain old, white, refined, most likely GMO sugar. Hazelnuts  make their appearance after sugar and palm oil. If we were to name this spread appropriately, we might call it “sugar palm oil spread”, but that doesn’t have the right ring to it. Unless you’re choosing to hop off your health train while on holidays in Paris, there’s no reason to choose Nutella for breakfast.
2. More sugar with your sugar?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say you’re probably not spreading Nutella on celery sticks. It’s going on toast (probably the gluten-packed white kind) or crepes/pancakes (ditto). When the sugar from the refined carbohydrates meets the sugar from the chocolate spread, boom — there goes your energy and blood sugar balance for the day. Breakfasts such as these will in no way support the learning of children.
Nutella is a spreadable candy bar.
High sugar intake first thing in the morning will spike blood sugar levels, resulting in a plummet mid morning and contribute to poor concentration, hyper activity and aggression.

5 reasons to ban Nutella from the breakfast table #healthwashing via @meghantelpner

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3. The second ingredient is modified vegetable oils.
You know how we feel about those, right? Vegetables don’t make oil, which means these so-called “vegetable oils” need to go through a heck of a lot of processing in order to become Nutella. Not good. We love fat, but it needs to come from natural, unprocessed sources otherwise we are eating cancer-contributing refined oils that only serve to promote inflammation in the body and challenge our heart, liver, brain, endocrine and nervous systems to function efficiently.
In my book UnDiet I wrote the following:
“These oils are highly processed and most commonly genetically modified, unless specifically labeled organic. Many of them, such as cottonseed and soy, carry loads of chemicals. The high heat processing destroys any nutrients that may naturally occur like vitamin E and omega-3 essential fatty acids. To make margarine the spreadable consistency people seem to dig, the oil must be hardened. This is done by hydrogenation or bubbling hydrogen through the vegetable oil at high temperature, a process that enables it to be solid at room temperature. This is the same property that makes it perfect as frosting on cakes. When the carbon bonds are saturated with hydrogen, the product is called a saturated fat or a hydrogenated oil.”
4. If you want the whole package, it’s not in the jar.
Treats are awesome. There’s nothing wrong with making something delicious and amazing and sharing it with your loved ones, especially when you’re celebrating a special occasion. If you are actually looking for a healthy spread, Nutella is not it. You are better off running some hazelnut through your food processor and adding a little honey and pinch of salt. Toss in some cacao if you want the chocolate vibe. But check this comparison.

Nutella vs. Hazelnuts
Per 1 Tbs (19 grams)/ Approx 14 hazelnuts

Calories
Nutella: 100
Hazelnuts: 94

Protein
Nutella: 1 gram
Hazelnuts: 3 grams

Fat
Nutella: 6 grams
Hazelnuts: 11.5 grams

Carbs
Nutella: 11grams
1 gram from Fibre
11 grams from Sugar
Hazelnuts: 3 grams
2 grams from Fibre
0.85 grams from Sugar

Vitamin E
Nutella: 10 % (RDI)
Hazelnuts: 42% (RDI)

Now don’t go getting scared about the fat content. The fat in whole hazelnuts is the great brain-fuelling, energy-moderating kind.
5. There are so many better options out there.
Honestly — why start your day with processed chocolate spread when you can start it with amazing oatmeal or a smoothie or even pastured eggs?
If your answer is “because it’s delicious,” that choice is yours, but your answer shouldn’t be “because it’s the healthy option.”
Here are just a few awesome special occasion breakfast recipes:

• Baked Apple Gingerbread Cake (yes, even this cake is better for you than Nutella!)
• Cocoa Banana Blue Pancakes
• Banana Hemp Faux-Gurt
• French Toast with Wings
• Cherry Banana Bonanza

If what you are seeking is the quick and easy,  I have loads more ideas here, or sign up for my newsletter below and we’ll send you a full downloadable Best Breakfast cookbook.
What’s your go-to breakfast creation?