Green Options

A recent blog criticized Kraft’s Macaroni & Cheese dinner, a family and kids favorite for decades, for selling a quick meal product made with “cheese products,” not real cheese.

On my next shopping trip, I bought a box to investigate what was in that powdery but tasty cheese sauce.  A blue and gold ribbon printed on the box already told me I was going to get The Cheesiest and the “original flavor.”  The ingredients include CHEESE SAUCE (WHEY, MILKFAT, MILK PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, SALT, SODIUM TRIPOLYPHOSPHATE . . . MILK, YELLOW 5, YELLOW 6, ENZYMES, CHEESE CULTURE). The dinner also contains wheat, milk.

General Mills and Kellogg’s want to sell sugary processed foods like Froot Loops and Lucky Charms to your kids.  This isn’t anything new.  But under the guise of the new “Smart Choices” Program, large food corporations want to proudly label sugary, highly processed foods as good nutritional food options.

The program was recently created by a conglomerate of conglomerates, including ConAgra Foods, Kellogg’s, Kraft Foods, Pepsico, Tyson Foods, and Unilever.  The participating companies list all their products that “meet a comprehensive set of nutrition criteria based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and other sources of nutrition science and authoritative dietary guidance”.  You can review the Smart Choices website for yourself.

The popularity of organic foods in the last few years has been as well documented as it was explosive. As the growth and popularity of organic and natural foods increased, large agri-business and giant food producers became extremely interested in increasing their market share by acquiring smaller organic food companies.

With all the acquisitions that have taken place over the last few years, do you know who owns your favorite organic foods company? I sure don’t.  Between large companies engulfing smaller organic food producers, and large agri-business developing “strategic alliances” with once independent companies, it’s hard to know if the little local tofu producer is still just that, or part of a behemoth entity that you thought you were avoiding.