New cereals are still plenty sweet

General Mills Reduced Sugar Cereals. Cocoa Puffs, Trix and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. $3.29 to $3.89 per 11.75-ounce to 13.75-ounce box.

Bonnie: Shame on you, General Mills!

I'm sure you were hoping dietitians like me would be praising you for introducing new versions of old cereals with 75 percent less sugar than the originals. But I'm appalled. Appalled because instead of just reducing the sugar, as your competitor Kellogg's did with its 1/3 Less Sugar Frosted Flakes and Froot Loops, you also coated your kids' cereals with the artificial sweetener Splenda. Why, oh why, are you giving kids artificial sweeteners in your already-too-sweet breakfast cereals? Why not instead help teach them to eat right and exercise so that we may begin to raise children of healthy weights?

These cereals are a disgrace, and you should be ashamed to sell them to children!

Carolyn: The low-carb diet craze and kids' obesity has caused both of America's major cereal makers to reduce the sugar in some of their most sinful kids' cereals in two different ways: Kellogg's has actually cut back on the sweetness to create Frosted Flakes and Froot Loops with slightly different tastes; General Mills is simply replacing some of the sugar with an artificial sweetener so that these versions with 75 percent less sugar taste almost exactly like the originals.

I like both sets of new cereals and recommend them to anyone who is worried about calories or carbs. But I wonder if there might be an even better way for manufacturers to go about this: Namely, simply reducing the sugar in some of their most sugary cereals very gradually and without fanfare over the course of a number of years until even people like me get used to less.

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Campbell's Chunky Chili With Beans. Sizzlin' Steak, Tantalizin' Turkey, Firehouse! and Roadhouse. $2.29 per 19-ounce can.

Bonnie: Being a made-from-scratch kind of gal, I didn't look forward to testing Campbell's Chunky Chili. But for canned food, the Roadhouse and Firehouse! varieties are not bad at all. I was also impressed with the 7 grams of fiber contained in a half-can serving. (Half a can, by the way, contains 15 percent more chili than the cup serving indicated on the Nutrition Facts, which is why you unfortunately always need to look at both the serving size and the number of servings on a label to get accurate nutrition information.)

I was less impressed with the Sizzlin' Steak and Tantalizin' Turkey, specifically the meat, which had the texture of organ meat such as heart or gizzard. So stick to the Roadhouse and Firehouse! varieties, and be sure to serve them with a salad and some fruit.