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General Mills To Drop Artificial Ingredients In Cereal
schwit1 writes: General Mills announced Monday that it will be removing artificial colors and flavoring from its cereal products over the next two to three years. The company said that Trix and Reese's Puffs will be some of the first cereals to undergo the changes adding that cereals like Lucky Charms that have marshmallows may take longer to reformulate. They say 90 percent of their cereals will have no artificial ingredients by the end of 2016. "We've continued to listen to consumers who want to see more recognizable and familiar ingredients on the labels and challenged ourselves to remove barriers that prevent adults and children from enjoying our cereals," said Jim Murphy, president of General Mills cereal division, in a statement.
Like high fructose corn syrup? Because HFCS doesn't grow on trees, whereas certain red dyes do at least grow on beetles.
Finally, Cookie Crisp might actually taste like Cookie Crisp once again.
(Disclaimer: I really don't have the foggiest if Cookie Crisp is General Mills, Post, or whatever. Not the point.)
Really. Define that word in an accurate, unambiguous way. I challenge you.
Even if you could do this, the most toxic things in cereals are natural byproducts. See Acrylamide.
PERSON 1: "Well, you know we can always use natural sources for color."
PERSON 2: "But we've always used petroleum-based colors in our cereals."
PERSON 1: "It would probably cut back on all of the side effects our internal studies have proven, like increased obesity, hypertension disorder, ADD..."
PERSON 2: "But it still costs more."
PERSON 1: "Well....I can get some numbers togeth..."
PERSON 2: "Let's go to lunch, I know a really good Hooters just down the street."
PERSON 1: "....Ok."
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
There is absolutely no difference between a flavor-ant that has been isolated and extracted (with chemical processes and solvents in most cases) starting with a natural source and the same chemical that has been produced with a chemical process starting with purified raw ingredients.
This change has nothing to do with health or whether one additive is more deadly than another additive. For all we know the new formulations are going to be more deadly to humans. I can't imagine that Trix can said to actually nutritional for any human person, although Trix Yogurt used to be one of the less offensive brands of yogurt like food stuff. This change has to do with market differentiation and convincing parents to pay a premium for name brand product that kids will eat. Now, if we are talking nutrition, I would say a mug of steel cut oatmeal with raisins is a good minimally processed food, that is cheap and nutritional to boot. But this was not my breakfast a little tyke because no one made me breakfast. There was dry cereal and a cup of milk and it was up to be to put it together. I ate corn chex mostly, which still has one of the shortest ingredient labels in the business, and BHT is the only thing that is suspect.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
... but if they really want to clean up their act, they have to stop their partnership with Nestle right now.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
There's this huge movement against GMOs, artificial ingredients and other scapegoat ingredients du jour, despite the fact that virtually all of them have undergone rigorous testing and long-term studies and have proven to be safe for human consumption in reasonable quantities. But I guess if it spooks consumers, companies are going to do what's necessary to maintain their revenue streams. Never mind that a diet high in simple carbs like sugar and HFCS (which are highly and conspicuously represented in General Mills products) are the real enemies that shorten your life and bring on obesity and all its nasty side effects like cancer, heart disease and diabetes. Then again, I guess it's better to simply green wash them as "organic evaporated cane juice" and the like than to risk making things less palatable?
How hard would it be to drop the corn syrup part and just call it fructose?
I read the title, I imagined them doing experiments where they had bowls of cereal lined up, then they took various artificial ingredients and dropped them into the bowls to see what would happen. So basically, research for their next cereal, what additional artificial crap can we add that we haven't already tried?
I'm glad to see exactly the opposite was actually the case (supposedly. I'll believe it when it actually happens.)
cereal boxes begin floating off the shelves.
To some extent true, but there is load of artificial coloring which do not exist naturally. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... is only existing because we made it, and is not existing in insect specie or anything. Heck Some artificial coloring may induce hyperactive behavior in children. http://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/... and http://www.scientificamerican....
Assuredly evidence might not be enough to forbid the ingredients, but it is enough to warrant caution and maybe remove it from children's food. Personally I do not know the research good enough to tell. Anyway, definitively not natural. But the natural fallacy (which you might have wanted to mention) never took hold for me. Pure natural arsenic or botulism toxin is poison, artificial non naturally existing recent antibiotic, preservative additive are helpful. It is not about the natural or artificial provenance that people should look to, but the effects. But then again that's why it is called a fallacy.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
The first thing to realize is that the summary and the linked article are muddying terms. The GM press release (I think that's the text of the official press release) doesn't actually mention "artificial ingredients" but rather the clunkier phrasing "artificial flavors and colors from artificial sources". So it's not all "artificial ingredients", just the artificial colors and flavors. (So things like synthetically produced vitamins, emulsifiers and preservatives aren't necessarily covered by this announcement.) Artificial colors and flavors are rather easier to remove than some of the other artificial ingredients.
The tricky part with replacing artificial colors and flavors isn't removing them - you could just remove them without any other changes, but you typically end up with cereal the color and flavor of the box it's packaged in. Instead, the problem is working out a processing scheme where you can replace the colors and flavors with "natural" alternatives without substantially altering the palatability to the consumer. You take out FD&C Red 40 and replace it with beetroot extract - which while still red is not the same shade and brightness of red. This means you have to tweak the recipe (e.g. find a mix of natural pigments) and hope that consumers don't mind the more muted colors.
Depending on how much you want the new product to look and taste like the old (rather than like cardboard), you may need a substantial reformulation of the ingredients and processing. Natural colors and flavors tend to be more sensitive than the artificial versions, so they can fade on heating or storage, requiring a retooling of the production line to compensate.
Growing up, we only got sugary cereals like Trix and Froot Loops one week out of the year when we stayed with our grandparents during summer break. I've always imagined that all of the artificial ingredients were the source of the distinctive smell that causes the "Ratatouille moment" I experience whenever I get a whiff of a freshly opened box of Trix.
Research of replacement options, testing how well they work including long term shelf stability and market approval, establishing new supply chains with different producers, retooling factories, and producing new stock.
We are not talking about flavors specifically, but also COLORS. Read up on where artificial colors come from.
If you are OK with it, that's fine for YOU.
"Consumers" have a right to consume what they want and not what they don't.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
.."Packaged-food companies are losing market share and seeing revenue fall as consumers turn toward brands known for less processed, simpler, more authentic food."
General Mills is losing money to "healthier" alternatives. Remember that old Slashdot meme, "vote with your wallet"? This is what happens when people do that.
Crunchy Frog - "If we took the bones out, it wouldn't be crunchy - would it?"
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Because when I eat "Lucky Charms Cereal", I expect it to be as natural and healthy as the appearance and packaging imply.
Their entire line of product is sugary junk -- Cocoa Puffs and the like. I think the decades long movement of making our food chemically better is now starting to swing in the opposite direction, with the likes of Paleo diet that won't even look at organic whole grains, let alone processed cereals with added sugar and artificial ingredients.
What's interesting is that just as the US was the first in terrible food and bad eating habits, with the rest of the world catching up, it appears it's also the first to lead on the way back.
Because "High Fructose Corn Syrup" rolls off the tongue slightly better than "a 50%:50% ±10% homogeneous mixture of fructose and glucose with >0.5% residual corn proteins and cellulose."
Not to mention bacteria enzymes.
My personal problem with HFCS is that I'm allergic to corn, and food-grade purification processes don't clean out enough of what I'm allergic to for ANY corn-sourced food ingredient to be safe for me. (As I understand it, antibodies are THE most sensitive detectors of particular molecules / molecular sites known to man, and it only takes four molecules to trigger an allergic reaction.) Fry it (ALL!) brown and it's safe, else forget it.
But I hear that HFCS is an obesity issue because it doesn't trip the appetite regulation as strongly as sucrose, so people tend to eat more of it.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
We are removing the di-hydrogen monoxide from our products and replacing it with water!
While removing chemical stuff is good, too much natural sugar still leads to natural diabetes
Arguably, all of our agricultural produce is artificial to one degree or another. You want 'all natural' cereal for breakfast? Your box of cereal will contain a woven grass basket with instructions to go out and collect it yourself.
Have gnu, will travel.
Sometimes I feel bad using off-brand products when I realize how much money the original innovator is losing to a copy-cat...then there are times like these. GM will have to raise their prices for an already over-priced product just so they can pander to suckers. I'll take my GMO's and other "artificial" food items where are completely harmless for half the price, thank you very much.
I haven't been demanding it. I don't know anybody else who has either. Most people I know understand the concept of food coloring (like what you buy for cake decorating) and aren't bothered by it.
The only people that are rabidly opposed to it are the natural food religious zealots. They don't really give a shit if science has found it safe, they just hate seeing chemical names on their food labels and assume that because it doesn't sound like the name of a plant or a vitamin, why then without a doubt it must be bad for you because it's not as gaia intended.
So for example, you can't use the word "ascorbic acid" on a food label, because a religious nut will flip out and think it's an evil chemical. So instead you have to use the colloquial name for the same molecule, which is vitamin c.
The real question is, whether the problem with artificial ingredients, is just a problem with regard to specific artificial ingredients that are just selected to mimic a specific characteristic of a natural ingredients (flavour, odour, texture, anti-biotic activity) with little regard to the other characteristics of that artificial ingredient and those other characteristics causing problems.
Would a completely artificial food, properly engineering for safe consumption and low allergen characteristics with an indigestible fibre added for digestive function be a suitable goal. Logically it could prove far safer than genetic manipulation and ever increasing levels of toxins in the environment. Rather than fake food pretending to be natural food how about actual completely engineered artificial foods. Taste is important though, as it allows active dietary control via flavour profiles, a preference for particular minerals via varying flavour preferences.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Castoreum would be considered a natural flavoring. So "natural" really means nothing of consequence, and artificial equally means nothing of consequence... unless you prefer fresh-squeeze beaver anus, that is...
I thought they were going to drop Artificial Intelligence into cereal.
Sugar (sucrose) feeds you equal amounts of glucose and fructose.
HFCS used in sodas is 55% fructose and 41% glucose.
Human body has built-in sensors for high glucose. Our blood sugar goes up, we feel energized, we stop being hungry.
Human body has NO sensors for fructose. You can eat or drink it all day and never feel you had enough.
That's cause fructose in nature comes in the form of fruit. With all that fiber you have to gobble down and then carry around in your gut till the fructose gets extracted.
And that would trip a bunch of other sensors telling us to stop eating.
So, when we take sucrose which is exactly half glucose half fructose, the moment we hit satiety for glucose that also trips our "I'm full" sensor and we stop eating.
At which point we have ingested an equal amount of both ready to burn glucose and ready to be turned into fat and burned later fructose.
HFCS 55 on the other hand only has about 80% of glucose that sucrose has. And no fiber to trip the "fructose-comes-with-a-lot-of-fiber" sensor.
So, to reach glucose satiety and trip the "I'm full" sensor drinking HFCS 55, we will have to intake about 1.25 times more sweetener then with sucrose.
But HFCS 55 has 110% of the amount of the fructose contained in sugar (sucrose).
Meaning that to reach the same glucose satiety level which would trip that "I'm full" senor, we ingest 1.25 more sweetener which contains 1.1 times more of the chemical we use solely for production of fat.
Unless we're hiking dozens of miles daily, in snow, up hill, both ways.
Cause we evolved to store that fructose which grows in warm weather for the long winter months when there is no food growing on trees.
And we don't start burning it until we burn all our glucose in our bloodstream.
1.25 times 1.1 equals 1.375 times more fructose (i.e. future fat) ingested when drinking HFCS 55 sweetened soda, compared to drinking the same soda sweetened with sucrose.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
HFCS 55 is 55% fructose, ~41% glucose and ~4% other sugars.
Sucrose is 50-50 glucose and fructose.
Low blood sugar is low glucose. We eat/drink until we get to the "high glucose" level. At which point the craving stops.
HFCS 55 (the soda kind) contains 110% more fructose than sucrose, and ~80% less glucose than sucrose.
So, to get the same "high glucose" level we will have to ingest more HFCS than sucrose.
About 1.25 times more. Of a sweetener which contains 1.1 times more of that fat forming fructose.
1.25 * 1.1 = 1.375
1.375 times MORE fructose is ingested with HFCS, for the same amount of glucose, needed to reach satiety, than with sucrose.
We might as well be pouring cooking oil into our table sugar and eating it with a spoon.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
There is no such thing as a cometing industry.
A comet is small, icy, Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, heats up and begins to outgas, displaying a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail.
And they are most certainly NOT made of sugar. No, not even that white tail.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
This is just a marketing stunt, really. Look at strawberry jam, for example - 'No artificial colours' doesn't mean 'All the red in this jar comes from strawberries', it means 'We used beetroot juice' and so on. And of course, 'natural' isn't the same as good either - strychnine and morphine are very natural substances. And 'No added sugar' mostly just means 'We used concentrated something to increase the sugar contect "naturally"'.
But really, breakfast products are no more than cakes and sweet desserts; most yoghurt is nothing more than slightly sour custard. Apparently the only breakfast cereal that is actually healthy, is oatmeal.
I read this as "General Mills To Drop Artificial Intelligence In Cereal" which confused the hell out of me.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
DHMO will kill you! Get the facts here http://www.dhmo.org/
...The only people that are rabidly opposed to it are the natural food religious zealots. They don't really give a shit if science has found it safe, they just hate seeing chemical names on their food labels and assume that because it doesn't sound like the name of a plant or a vitamin, why then without a doubt it must be bad for you because it's not as gaia intended...
I very rarely choose to buy food with colourings, flavourings or preservatives, either artificial or natural. My rationale is terribly simple and bears no resemblance to your suppositions.
Almost all food tastes and looks pretty good when it's first harvested or slaughtered. If it's been processed to the point where the colour and taste need to be enhanced in some way, or if it's going to hang around in a warehouse for long enough to need preservatives, I figure that there's a pretty good chance that a load of invisible nutrients have degraded as badly as the visible and olfactory components. I'm sure I'm not always right, but I'm happy with that assumption as a rule of thumb.
Should have thought of that a year ago.
New York Times, April 2014
When 'Liking' a Brand Online Voids the Right to Sue
The real question is, whether the problem with artificial ingredients, is just a problem with regard to specific artificial ingredients that are just selected to mimic a specific characteristic of a natural ingredients (flavour, odour, texture, anti-biotic activity) with little regard to the other characteristics of that artificial ingredient and those other characteristics causing problems.
Would a completely artificial food, properly engineering for safe consumption and low allergen characteristics with an indigestible fibre added for digestive function be a suitable goal. Logically it could prove far safer than genetic manipulation and ever increasing levels of toxins in the environment. Rather than fake food pretending to be natural food how about actual completely engineered artificial foods. Taste is important though, as it allows active dietary control via flavour profiles, a preference for particular minerals via varying flavour preferences.
Most things that people eat are completely engineered artificial foods. Real food does not contain ingredients. An apple is an apple. An egg is an egg and a chicken leg is a chicken leg. On the other hand, if there are ingredients listed on the label, then it is already engineered and most likely artificial. It is possible to have ingredients that are all foods in and of them self. A cobb salad could be an example, but even though it might not be artificial, if you are buying it pre-packaged, it is still engineered.
How much wronger is it than the current name. Calling a truck a car is a little wrong. Calling a truck a fruitcake is a lot wrong.
What do you mean - that's not artificial? But humans did it, not Mother Nature.
I wonder if these almonds have a low enough amount of natural cyanide to be safe to eat? Well it'll be OK, because Mother Nature's cyanide doesn't kill you as badly as artificial cyanide.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Almost all food tastes and looks pretty good when it's first harvested or slaughtered. If it's been processed to the point where the colour and taste need to be enhanced in some way, or if it's going to hang around in a warehouse for long enough to need preservatives
That's almost never why. If you've ever had a fruit tree in your back yard, or seen actual corn in a field before, you'd know that not all food ends up the same color. Some people misinterpret it as exactly what you're doing now (assuming it's just outdated) when in reality it's perfectly fine (i.e. the taste isn't impacted, nor is the nutritional content.) That's where coloring comes in.
Anyways as for the food religion's common complaint about processing and not being fresh, I just have the following two points to make:
- If you ever cook, grind, or otherwise modify food in any way prior to eating, congratulations, it's processed.
- Thanks to refrigeration and other preservation inventions of the 19th century and later, most people eat more fresh food now than they ever have.