This is a great LA Times piece (journalism! enjoy it while you can) on whether eating high-fiber cereal alone is enough to lower your cholesterol in a meaningful way.

Of course, the answer is: probably not. You’d need to eat several times the suggested serving for weeks in order to get enough fiber—at least 3 grams daily—to make a difference. Of course if you eat the cereal and also pick up a few more grams of fiber eating other things through the day, then you’re ok, but the commercials do tend to suggest that all you need to do is eat a bowl every day and you’re golden.

Americans do tend to want to solve problems via purchases and so many things get couched in those terms. Buy organic! Buy this lightbulb and not that one! Buy this fancy composter! Buy a fancy henhouse! It’s worth looking past the claims and sometimes not buying anything at all. Christ I’m deep and pompous, but you know what I mean. Props to the LA Times for digging in on the research and publishing this, because you know General Mills is a big advertiser. (By the way did you know that is the reason most newspapers have food sections? Because stores and restaurants advertise in them and that pays for the rest of the paper. Thus ends my lesson in obviousness for now.)

—Snacktime