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The real reason General Mills will cut fake flavors from cereals like Trix and Lucky Charms

The Columbian
Published: June 28, 2015, 12:00am

Breakfast behemoth General Mills, maker of Trix, Reese’s Puffs and Lucky Charms, said Monday it plans to remove artificial colors and flavors from its cereals by 2017, becoming the latest food giant to swap out the additives in response to changing American tastes.

Instead of dyes like Red No. 40 and Yellow No. 6, Trix’s crunchy rainbow corn balls will be colored by turmeric, a yellow spice in curries and mustard, and juice concentrates of blueberries, radishes and strawberries. Artificial vanilla will be replaced by the real stuff in Reese’s Puffs.

“People eat with their eyes, and so … the trick is, how can we maintain an appealing look, just not using the artificial colors?” said Jim Murphy, the president of General Mills’ cereal division. “People don’t want colors with numbers in their food anymore.”

The flavors won’t change, General Mills’ senior manager Lauren Pradhan said, and there will be “minimal to no changes in nutrition.” Still, some breakfast bowls will undergo a bit of a makeover: The new Trix, for instance, will kill off its fluorescent blue and green puffs, which chemists found hard to color without artificial dyes.

The move puts General Mills in the same food-conglomerate camp as Taco Bell, McDonald’s and Kraft, who over the last year have loudly removed mostly-harmless additives in hopes of making their foods look fresher or more natural.

But food experts said General Mills’ changes are merely a marketing ploy, intended to make their cereals appear to be a healthier addition to breakfast bowls.

“These companies are desperate to keep parents buying these really unhealthy foods … and now they can trumpet ‘no artificial dyes’ as if that makes it a health food,” said Michele Simon, a public-health attorney and president of Eat Drink Politics, a food-industry consulting firm.

“These kid-oriented cereals are still extremely processed, have virtually no nutritional value and are fortified with vitamins because the real nutrients have been stripped in processing,” Simon added. “If they really wanted to be healthier, they should stop bombarding children with messages to eat candy in a box.”

About 60 percent of General Mills’ cereals — such as Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cheerios, Kix and Total — are free of artificial colors, but the rest of its cereal aisle will drop the fake stuff by 2017. Prices won’t change, the company said, when the new Trix and Reese’s Puffs hit shelves this winter.

Kate Gallagher, a company cereal developer, said some of the fake-ingredient removals have proven “more challenging than others.” In Trix, “red is one where we haven’t been able to get that same vibrant color, but we’re still able to get a nice red that pops in the cereal bowl and is still a fun eating experience.”

The most herculean change, the company says, will come from removing fake colors and flavors from marshmallow-loaded cereals like Lucky Charms and Count Chocula, because the spongy sugar balls are harder to reflavor than flakes of grain. “We are committed,” Gallagher added, “to finding a way to keep the magically delicious taste.”

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