My forthcoming (September 8) book with Lisa Sutherland, Sugar Coated: Unboxing the Hidden Forces Shaping America’s Favorite Breakfast Food, discusses Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) efforts to remove potentially harmful artificial colors from the food supply.
I just bought the first cereal that dropped those colors and replaced them with vegetable dyes.
The company did this quietly. I had to look hard to find the green label in the upper right corner saying “colors from natural sources.” Compare the colors of the cereal (pretty close to what it actually looks like) to the original Trix colors, still on the market.
As for the cereals, both:
Whole Grain Corn, Sugar, Corn Meal, Corn Syrup, Maltodextrin, Rice Flour, Canola And/Or Sunflower Oil, Salt, Color (Vegetable And Fruit Juice, Annatto Extract, Turmeric Extract And Other Color Added), Natural And Artificial Flavor, Trisodium Phosphate, Citric Acid, Malic Acid, Rosemary Extract. Vitamins And Minerals
Whole Grain Corn, Sugar, Rice Flour, Corn Syrup, Canola and/or Sunflower Oil, Salt, Trisodium Phosphate, Natural and Artificial Flavor, Red 40, Yellow 6, Blue 1 and Other Color Added, Citric Acid, Malic Acid, Rosemary Extract. Vitamins and Minerals
Comment
Removing the artificial dyes is a good idea, but does not convert Trix to a health food. Alas.
Information about the Aspen Ideas Festival is here. I am scheduled for a session, The American Wellness Paradox, currently scheduled from 11:00-11:50 a.m., at the East Lawn Tent. This will be a discussion with senior HHS policy advisor, Calley Means. Here’s the blurb on it: “Americans are spending more than ever on healthcare, supplements, wellness trends, and “clean eating,” yet rates of chronic disease and metabolic illness continue to climb. As skepticism fuels the rise of movements like MAHA, debates over what Americans should eat have become deeply cultural, political, and economic. Two influential voices with sharply different perspectives on nutrition and food science explore how food systems, farming practices, consumer culture, and the wellness industry collided to create one of the defining public health debates of our time.”
