The following is a video of a grown man performing an experiment most of us would have done in elementary school...... The one where you crush cereal, and take a magnet to it to prove it has iron.

But thats not all he does.... no, he does his best to convince the viewers that this is somehow a bad thing.

So firstly what exactly is iron?...... Iron is a element metal. Its dark grey in color, and is magnetic. It also reacts with oxygen very easily to form rust. Iron is found in many things around you, from the nails and screws holding your house together, to many foods (including many cereals.).

So is iron bad for you?..... No. In fact iron is vital for you to live. It has a few uses in your body, but the most important function of iron is that your body uses iron to make Hemoglobin, a molecule found in red blood cells. This hemoglobin carries Oxygen to all tissues of your body, and without it you would die. But you already know this... its taught as early as grade school, and covered in depth in human biology in high school. So lets get to the itty gritty of his case.

HIs main claim is that "Wheaties contains shards of metal in it".... Is this claim remotely true? Lets find out.

https://www.caloriecount.com/calories-wheaties-i132636

From the nutritional information listed, Wheaties has 45% of a humans guidelines daily value for iron (based of 2000 Kcal diet). A serving is 3/4 of a cup.

http://www.netrition.com/rdi_page.html
For a 2000 Kcal diet, 100% daily value of iron is 18 milligrams. 45% of 18 = 8.1.

A single 3/4 cup serving of Wheaties contains 8.1 MILLIGRAMS of iron.... or less than 1/100 the mass of a standard paperclip. Now if you look closely when he does the close-up of the magnet with Wheaties on it, you cant see any visible metal. To actually see the iron in your cereal do this experiment: Take 1 serving of Wheaties, put it in a gallon sized Ziploc bag and fill it with water. Let it set for a few hours. Take a strong magnet, and place it on top of the bag.... The iron will collect around the magnet, and it will become visible. So his claim is only half right..... There is metal in Wheaties.... But the particles are so small no reasonable person would call them "shards" , and the amount so minute that it is absolutely harmless. The iron is meant to be there because it is an important nutrient.

In conclusion: Wheaties is good, Fear mongering is bad, and the man in the video is a scientific idiot.