Sex cereal is healthy enough to increase your sex life in 2013
Peter Ehrlich from Toronto, ON, enters the Den with the first gender-based cereal designed to fuel sexual health.
This new product getting lots of attention and it’s made in St. Catherines Ontario. St. Catharines is the largest city in Canada's Niagara Region and the sixth largest urban area in Ontario.
According to its makers, Sexcereal is designed to support sexual health. And if the images on the package are to be believed, the world’s first gender-based breakfast cereal will either leave you feeling like a blonde 1950s pin-up model or a burly
lumberjack. Since its launch last June, sales have increased and distribution has expanded to more than 300 health food stores across the country. But popularity really began to take off last month when the product was featured on CBC’s Dragons’ Den.
Nutrition Value of sex cereal
HIS Ingredients
Rolled oats, wheat germ, water, chia seeds, black sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, blueberries (sweetened with apple juice), cacao nibs, goji berries, bee pollen, maca powder, camu camu, coconut sugar
HER Ingredients
Rolled oats, oat bran, sunflower seeds, water, flax seeds, chia seeds, soy protein, cranberries (sweetened with apple juice), goji berries, cacao nibs, almonds, ginger ground, maca powder, coconut sugar
Nutrition Value
Serving size in grams-45
Calories in cereal for men-190
Calories in cereal for women-200
Grams in each bag-300
Cost -$ 12
This cereal is brainchild of a Toronto businessman, Sex Cereal is quickly rising to fame after making an appearance on CBC’s Dragon’s Den just before Valentine’s Day. Peter Ehrlich came up with the concept while walking through a vegan food fair. The lightbulb went off and the idea of a cereal with different recipes for men and women was born. “Sexual health is so important,” Ehrlich said from his office in Toronto. “I wanted to create something sexy and fun in the health food industry because nothing is. Everything is very serious.”
Ehrlich used nutritionists to formulate two separate recipes that are supposed to improve the sexual health of men and women in different ways. The person behind the image and packaging of Sex Cereal is St. Catharines designer Maximilian Kaiser - the son of Inniskillin winery co-founder Karl Kaiser – who has been designing labels for wine bottles and packaging for other industries for 20 years.The packaging Kaiser came up with has a blonde pin-up girl on the cereal for women and a fit guy on the cereal for men. “Initially we had some pin-up girl positions that were a little more racy, but we dialed it back a bit because of the legitimacy of the product,” Kaiser said. “We didn’t want it to look like a gag gift. It’s about trying to get the attention without being like a novelty.”That continues to be one of the big challenges of selling the cereal – even though it’s available in hundreds of nutrition and grocery stores across Canada.
“We’ve put a lot of effort into making people realize it’s a whole food and high-quality stuff,” said Kaiser.Ehrlich said after launching the cereal last June, it wasn’t until the beginning of this year that distributors and stores finally started agreeing to carry it. But interest is picking up – especially since the Dragon’s Den appearance. It’s now available in 700 stores across Canada including a handful in St. Catharines. Tina Lee, the owner of Well! Well! Well! Nutrition Centre said she didn’t mind carrying it after the popularity of another natural cereal with a unique name. “When a company came out with Holy Crap we thought ‘you’ve gotta be kidding.’ But it sold like crazy,” Lee said about the B.C.-produced cereal. “After that, Sex Cereal came out and it was the same idea.”As for Sex Cereal, it’s produced and packaged at a factory in St. Catharines. But the people who run that factory said they don’t want to be known as the company that makes the product. They asked that their name and location not be published. “We have come across that a couple of times,” Kaiser said. “But I think people see the big picture. This is an honest product and people are being honest about sexuality a lot more now, too. “At about $12 a bag, Sex Cereal isn’t cheap, but Ehrlich said there’s a reason for that. “The ingredients are quite rare,” he said. “I wasn’t creating a cereal for the sake of shock value. I know scientifically it had to be the real thing, but the real thing is expensive.”
First the good news: By all indications, Sexcereal does make for a nutritious meal. It has fibre, protein, plenty of vitamins and minerals and is low in sodium and sugar. But will that make any difference to your sex life? Let’s put it this way: Hold off before you start surreptitiously sprinkling Sexcereal onto your partner’s meals. “I think it’s definitely possible that foods can support sexual health,” said Andrea D’Ambrosio, a registered dietitian who does nutrition counselling in Mississauga and Waterloo. “I think this is moreso a product with very good intentions, and the marketing really takes over to sensationalize nutrition on it.”
Based on the fact the cereal is new to the market and has no scientific studies backing the link to sexual health, it’s too soon to draw any link, said Cara Rosenbloom, a registered dietitian based in Toronto. “It is smart marketing,” she said. Rosenbloom said that while research has noted a connection between zinc, vitamin E and sexual health, the Sexcereal label doesn’t indicate exactly how much of those ingredients are in the product. While the “male” cereal has black pumpkin seeds, which contain zinc, a person would likely have to consume a large amount of the seeds for there to be any impact, she said.
One serving would just have trace amounts of the nutrients, she said, Consumers would fare just as well investing in nutritious foods that support heart health, which is a key factor in maintaining good sexual health, Rosenbloom said. Considering a 300-gram bag of Sexcereal costs about $10 online, there may be cheaper ways to put a spring in your step in the morning.
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