Feed your children organic breakfast cereal, and they may miss out on necessary vitamins and minerals.

Why? Most organic cereals have fewer additives and preservatives, and in most cases, fewer vitamins and minerals as well.

Venture through the breakfast cereal aisle at grocery stores and you'll find a dizzying array of choices. Many stores now carry the Certified Organic equivalent of Americans' favorite commercial cereals. For example you'll find both "Kellogg's Frosted Flakes" and "EnviroKidz Organic Amazon Frosted Flakes." Don't automatically assume a product is better, simply because it's organic.

"There's a lot less ingredients in the organic one." Karrie Stuhlsatz is a Pediatric Dietitian at Doernbecher Children's Hospital in Portland. She calls breakfast the most important meal of the day, and says it should provide a good amount of vitamins and minerals. Stuhlsatz suggests if you're a cereal eater, chose one that's fortified.

"It's a great way to get a jump-start on your vitamin-needs for the day."

She holds a box of "Kellogg's Frosted Flakes" and a box "EnviroKidz Organic Amazon Frosted Flakes" and reads each label. "If they chose organic because of the processing concerns and additives, then what they're getting is good." But Stuhlsatz adds if you're going organic assuming you're getting vitamins and minerals, then you're out of luck.

"You have to make smart choices." She says you need to read labels. In the case of the Kellogg's versus the Envirokidz, "the non-organic cereal certainly has a lot more of the vitamins and minerals you need on a daily basis."

Listed among its nutritional facts, Amazon Frosted Flakes contains only two percent of the daily allowance of vitamin A and iron. It has no other vitamins or minerals. Each serving of the Frosted Flakes has between ten and twenty-five percent of the daily allowance of ten vitamins and minerals.

"I do think a lot of people equate organic with healthy." At least one organic line, Barbara's Bakery, does produce fortified cereals.

Stuhlsatz advises, keep it simple. Look for a fortified cereal low in sugar, low in fat, high in fiber, regardless of the brand.

She adds "I don't think it's bad if you eat the Organic cereal without the vitamins in it, as a parent, I would look at your child's diet as a whole." And if children aren't getting enough fruits, vegetables and minerals, add a multi-vitamin.