If I was Goldilocks (stay with me here), eating the 3 Bears' porridge wouldn't have been an issue. Why? Because: 1) I'm smart enough not to eat food that belongs to animals that can rip me to shreds, and 2) I really don't like the taste of porridge/oatmeal. The downside of that distaste is that I miss out on a great deal of health benefits offered by whole oats. The solution I came up with is to mix the oats with my morning protein shake, which helps me choke it down. But, it turns out that there is a tasty alternative to oatmeal, and it supposedly has similar heart-healthy properties.

But does it?

Classic Cheerios (not the Honey Nut kind) has more fiber (4 grams) than a packet of oatmeal (3 grams). And, just like oatmeal, whole-oat cold cereals chip away at your LDL cholesterol because they contain beta-glucans. This all sounds good so far, but there is some debate over whether or not the claims made on the Cheerios box (that a clinical study showed that eating two 1 and 1/2 cup servings daily of Cheerios cereal reduced cholesterol when eaten as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol) is legit. This woman researched these claims herself, only to find that the study was funded by General Mills. Does this automatically make it invalid? Not necessarily, but it does raise suspicions.

Since the 3 Bears declined to comment on this situation, I'd be very interested to hear what you guys have to say.