Go into any supermarket's cereal aisle, and you are bombarded with a magnitude of choice: kid cereals, breakfast cereals and supposedly healthy cereals. If you have narrowed down this choice to just two, whole grain or multi-bran, then you are after a cereal which can do something for your health. Either type of cereal has its own strengths and weaknesses, and you'll need to know these to determine which is right for you. In the question of whole grain versus multi-bran, it all depends on what you want to get out of your cereal choice.

Put simply, the cereal that is the healthiest for you is the whole grain variety. This boils down to the health benefits that are possible through whole grain cereal. These range from an increase in energy to more successful control of diabetes and cholesterol, to a better chance of reducing your weight. You should be wary when you prowl the cereal aisle to ensure you're buying real whole grain cereal. Manufacturers are sometimes devious in that they advertise cereal as "whole grain" while actually including refined grain, which is inferior and less healthy. Be sure to buy only whole grain cereals that have one ingredient, such as shredded wheat, oatmeal or puffed wheat. If you're buying so-called whole grain cereals with corn meal, milled corn, rice or wheat flour, then you are not getting 100 percent whole grain cereal, because those ingredients are refined.

Multi-bran cereal, as its name implies, is a cereal that features many different forms of nutrients that all play a part in keeping you healthy. One area where multi-bran cereal has whole grain cereal beat is the sheer number of vitamins and minerals that it includes. With more than 20 vitamins and minerals in a typical box of multi-bran cereal, it is rich in nutrients like vitamin D, zinc, iron and folate. Bran itself is nothing more than a byproduct of grains like wheat, rice and oats. Benefit-wise, multi-bran cereal is ideal for prompting you to lose weight. It achieves this by way of reducing your craving for more food and snacks throughout the day. The reason for this is its high content of both protein and fiber.

It is an established fact that both whole grain and multi-bran cereals are healthy for you. What it comes down to is just what kind of health benefit you want from your cereal. Choose whole grain cereal if you have issues with diabetes or cholesterol, or just desire a heightened sense of energy throughout your day. Choose multi-bran cereal if you instead value benefits like feeling full for a longer period of time and, consequently, standing a better chance of losing weight as a result of this.