Emily Jones

Sugar Content in Cereals

AP Statistics
6th Period
2/13/15

Cereals the typical breakfast food. A type of food so popular, a whole isle has to be
dedicated to it in grocery stores. And yet, cereals are not the healthiest breakfast option the
most well-known and well-loved cereals, such as Lucky Charms, Trix, and Frosted Flakes, are
more like deserts than part of a balanced breakfast. As a lover of these desert cereals, I
decided to investigate what percentage of cereals could be considered sugary or, in other words,
have a sugar content of .3333 grams of sugar per 1 gram of cereal (this baseline was found by
dividing 10 grams of sugar, the typical amount of sugar in sugary cereals, by the typical
serving size, 39 grams*) or higher. The reason I have sugar content per 1 gram of cereal is
because different cereals have different serving size, so just looking at the amount of sugar could
have influenced my results. This type of analysis is important because the amount of sugar in
some cereals can be surprising and many people eat cereals, so this might prompt people to look
more carefully at the cereals they are eating if they are concerned about their health or weight.
The population that I sampled from was cereal brands and types carried by HEB, a chain
of grocery stores located in Texas; I went to the HEB located at 5808 Burnet Rd. I did not

randomly sample for the HEB I went to because of convenience (it would have been difficult on
me and my family if I had chosen an HEB that was an hour away) and because all HEBs should
mostly carry the same brands, with only small variations between them. I performed my simple
random sample by counting the number of cereal brands and type (I counted similar cereals that
were made by different companies as different and different flavors of the same type of cereal as
different) and then selecting 30 three digits numbers (ignoring repeats, 000, and numbers 257
through 999) and recording the sugar content and the serving size of the corresponding cereal.
This is a simple random sample because every unit had the same chance at being selected. I used
a table of random digits to randomly select my sample. My sample may not be representative of
the population because I included granola, which tends to lean toward the healthy spectrum, as a
cereal. My sample did include a lot of healthier options, so it might report low on sugar content.
With a sample proportion of .3 and a sample size of 30, our confidence intervals for 90%,
95%, and 98% are (.16238, .43762), (.13602, .46398), and (.10536, .49464), respectfully. Thus,
we are 90% confidant that the true population proportion of cereal brands and types carried by
HEB that have a sugar content, in grams, per 1 gram of cereal above .3333 is between 16.238%
and 43.762%, we are 95% confidant that the true population proportion of cereal brands and
types carried by HEB that have a sugar content, in grams, per 1 gram of cereal above .3333 is
between 13.602% and 46.398%, and we are 98% confidant that the true population proportion of
cereal brands and types carried by HEB that have a sugar content, in grams, per 1 gram of cereal
above .3333 is between 10.536% and 49.464%. However, these results may be questionable as
not all of the conditions for approximately normal data were satisfied.
In conclusion, less than half of cereals are expected to have sugar content per 1 gram of
cereal above .3333 grams. I did expect a higher percentage of cereals to be counted of sugary,
but my data did include a lot of organic or healthy cereals, that could have skewed my results.

If I repeated this project, I would not include granola has a cereal, as it is not usually seen as a
typical cereal, like Lucky Charms or Cheerios are. However, 40% is still a statistically
significant proportion, so people should be careful when choosing cereal. Even cereals that do
not seem sugary can still contain a lot of sugar the cereal that had the highest sugar content
was not Lucky Charms, or Cocoa Pebbles, like one would expect, but Hill Country Fairs Frosted
Wheat Puffs.
Appendix A

Cereal Brand and Type

1. Woats - Nuts About Barries Granola
2. Woats - Peanut Butter Graham Slam
Granola
3. Nature Valley - Peantut Butter Granola
4. General Mills - Cocoa Puffs with Stars
5. General Mills - Cookies Crisps
6. HEB Organic - Peanut Butter Dots
7. HEB - Muesli
8. HEB - Multi Fit Flakes with Berries
9. Post - Cocoa Pebbles
10.Hill Country Fair - Frosted Wheat Puffs
11.Seitenbacher - Muesli #1 Natural Body
Power
12.Nature's Path - Sunrise Crunchy Vanilla
13.HEB Organic - Toasted O's
14.HEB - Granola with Dark Chocolate and
Hazel Nuts
15.Kelloggs Special K - Protein Cinnamon
Brown Sugar Crunch
16.Hill Country Fair - Oats and More with
Honey and Almonds
17.HEB - Corn Flakes
18.HEB - Rice Squares
19.Hill Country Fair - Fruitrageous
20.Nature's Path - Coconut Chia Granola
21.Barbara's - Organic Corn Flakes
22.Kashi - Heart to Heart Warm Cinnamon
23.Kashi - Go Lean

Sugar content (g) per 1

gram of cereal
0.3667
0.3333
0.2545
0.3704
0.3462
0.2593
0.2182
0.3125
0.3448
0.5556
0.2222
0.2
0.0333
0.3279
0.2903
0.1875
0.0667
0.0741
0.4074
0.1636
0.0667
0.1515
0.1731

24.HEB - Toasted Oaks

25.Kelloggs - Frosted Flakes
26.General Mills - Lucky Charms with Clover
Hats
27.Kelloggs - All Bran Wheat Flakes
28.Post - Grape Nut Flakes
29.Post - Honey Bunches of Oates Apple and
Cinnamon
30.HEB - Active Cultures Wheat Flakes

Appendix B

0.0333
0.3448
0.3704
0.1724
0.1379
0.2667
0.2727