Analyzing the Ingredients of Reese’s Puffs Cereal
“For the first time in the history of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the moment of conception until death.” Why do people consciously consume unhealthy, processed foods which big corporations in America distribute? These foods can lead to potentially harmful affects on the human body. So why are these risky products sold and consumed? The main reasons are because processed foods taste great and companies make large profits from these unwholesome products. General Mills is the 6th largest food company in the world, and uses genetically modified ingredients, preservatives, and artificial flavors in their products. The product that will be analyzed will be the tasty, mouthwatering breakfast favorite, Reese’s Puffs. Reese’s Puffs have been around since 1994 with varying taglines such as, “Reese's Puffs, Reese's Puffs...Peanut Butter Chocolate Flavor”. How is this peanut butter chocolate flavor made? The cereal contains 3 different types of artificial colors, BHT, and GMOs. Not only does the cereal contain high levels of sugar and sodium it also contains toxic food substances.
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According to CSPI, Central For Science In The Public Interest, and several other resources these dyes have been linked to Cancer, Hyperactivity, and Allergic Reactions in humans. “Tests on lab animals of Blue 1, Blue 2, Green 3, Red 40, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6 showed signs of causing cancer or suffered from serious flaws, said the consumer group. Yellow 5 also caused mutations, an indication of possible carcinogenicity, in six of 11 tests.” These artificial colors were tested on lab animals and provided evidence that certain types of dyes when consumed by humans could produce harmful affects such as mutations or
While some diseases are hereditary, most are preventable, But it’s hard to prevent a disease when companies such as Nestlé, Mondelez, and PepsiCo are increasing the levels of sugar, salt, fat, and flavor to products like soft drinks, candy, and cured meats. Food science research has shown that these types of products can stimulate neural circuits similar to those that are stimulated in cases of drug addiction. (Tempels, Verweij and Blok, 2017). In order for those companies to sell as many products as they can they prey on Americans and people around the world disregarding what their products may do to their health? Advertisements from these companies tempt people to give in and buy products they don’t need to eat. Promoting diabetes prevention or obesity prevention would be more successful if there weren’t so many temptations standing in the way of it
The book Salt, Sugar, and Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us discusses the danger of food with its readers. The dangers of food discussed in the book are the ingredients of Salt, Sugar and Fat in the food individuals consume on a daily basis. Producers use these ingredients to their advantage to get the consumers bliss point. The bliss point attained is used by the food giants to achieve a profit. However due to research on the health risks of these ingredients food companies are strategizing in order to maintain their profit and earn more of a profit.
P-Cresidine, also known as Red No. 40 Food coloring, is everywhere and in almost everything, yet people do not realize the risks that come along with today's tastefully colored foods. Red No. 40 food dye is the most commonly used of all the other artificial dyes. The dye is used in countless everyday foods and drinks. Unfortunately, like all good things have a bad side, all food dyes have certain risks linked to their intake. When mixed, food dyes can become very risky to the health of the individual. Mixing food dyes is very common and used in many occasions to produce the correct colors. Despite the fact that Red No. 40 is banned in many places for reasons regarding health, the United States still produces and uses the substance religiously. Most people know what artificial food coloring is and enjoy its use for creating delightfully colored, appetizing foods, however, only few know what artificial food dyes actually have the capability of doing. Aside from creating candy colored foods, artificial food dyes, p-cresidine in specific, is capable of causing all kinds of problems from hyperactivity, to genotoxicity, to even various types of cancers; yet people don’t know and even worse the majority of the people out there don't care.
The 2009 movie Food Inc. describes the major role that food production plays within many lives. This movie revealed that there is a very small variety of companies that consumers purchase their food from. These few companies actually control what is out on the shelves and what we put into our bodies. These companies have changed food production into a food production business. Many of these companies experiment with ways to create large quantities of food at low production costs to result in an enormous amount of profit for themselves. Some of the production cost cuts also result in less healthy food for the population. Instead of worrying about the health of the population, the companies are worried about what will make them the most money.
Food, everybody has to eat food. In this century there are millions of different foods that can be eaten. But sometimes while Americans indulge in the luxury options of foods, I wonder if they ever really pay attention to how bad many foods are for their bodies. I think everybody should turn to organic foods to help them live healthier lives. The reason that foods are so bad for the body to consume is because foods are packed with GMO’s. GMO’s are “genetically modified organisms” which are plants or animals that have been genetically engineered with DNA from bacteria, viruses, or other plants and animals. These experimental combinations of genes from different species cannot occur in nature, naturally (“GMO Facts,”2014).
of Philip Morris, said “People could point to these things and say, ‘They’ve got too much sugar, they’ve got too much salt […] well, that’s what the consumer wants, and we’re not putting a gun to their head to eat it. That’s what they want.” (Moss 267) However, consumers are being unconsciously forced to fund food industries that produce junk food. Companies devote much of their time and effort into manipulating us to purchase their products. For instance, Kraft’s first Lunchables campaign aimed for an audience of mothers who had far too much to do to make time to put together their own lunch for their kids. Then, they steered their advertisements to target an even more vulnerable pool of people; kids. This reeled in even more consumers because it allowed kids to be in control of what they wanted to eat, as Bob Eckert, the C.E.O. of Kraft in 1999, said, “Lunchables aren’t about lunch. It’s about kids being able to put together what they want to eat, anytime, anywhere” (Moss 268). While parents are innocently purchasing Lunchables to save time or to satisfy the wishes of their children, companies are formulating more deceiving marketing plans, further studying the psychology of customers, and conducting an excessive quantity of charts and graphs to produce a new and addictive
The sole purpose of a company is to offer goods and services while making a profit. If people have a liking for food products with so many unhealthy items and are willing to buy them, the companies have no obligation to reduce the amount of added ingredients. The companies aren’t the ones forcing the public to overeat. However, these companies shouldn’t market their products to people who they can easily exploit, like children and those who are penurious. Michael Moss, author of the article “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food” interviews several people who worked for certain big brand companies and gives us an abundant amount of information on how the food companies make and market their food to “get us hooked”.
American society has grown so accustomed to receiving their food right away and in large quantities. Only in the past few decades has factory farming come into existence that has made consuming food a non guilt-free action. What originally was a hamburger with slaughtered cow meat is now slaughtered cow meat that’s filled with harmful chemicals. Not only that, the corn that that cow was fed with is also filled with chemicals to make them grow at a faster rate to get that hamburger on a dinner plate as quickly as possible. Bryan Walsh, a staff writer for Time Magazine specializing in environmental issues discusses in his article “America’s Food Crisis” how our food is not only bad for us but dangerous as well. The word dangerous could apply to many different things though. Our food is dangerous to the consumer, the workers and farmers, the animals and the environment. Walsh gives examples of each of these in his article that leads back to the main point of how dangerous the food we are consuming every day really is. He goes into detail on each of them but focuses his information on the consumer.
Just as Pollan mentions, the industries profit from people making poor choices. One of which is choosing processed foods over whole foods. Given the environment people live in, it is difficult to make healthier choices because processed foods, such as canned or frozen fruits and vegetables, packaged foods, fortified foods, and easy-to-prepare foods, constitutes of more than 75% of foods in grocery stores. Foods that go through such processing lose many of their nutritional values, while industries themselves believe that by processing food they are actually trying to preserve its nutrients and freshness. The public falls for this
Hank Cardello, a former food executive, expresses the idea that grocers and other food executives do not have your best interest in mind in “What Grocers Don’t Want You to Know.” Cardello states that grocers set up supermarkets “like taking a choreographed tour through Disney World”(30). Getting to all of the products you want is easier than ever, but getting what you need has proven more difficult. During my own field research, I had discovered that getting the bare necessities (i.e. milk or even bread) were the hardest items to find in the supermarket I visited. It was even harder to find the truly organic form of these products. Why is it so hard to find something healthy in the food market? This is due to the subsidizing of these large food companies and them teaming with grocers to sell their products. Although it is hard to find these natural products, it is possible. Larger food companies use a lot of things to keep their items on the shelf. Preservatives are commonly found in these unhealthy products. Vileisis states in another chapter “Rise of the Modern Food Sensibility” that throughout history these preservatives have proven to be harmful. In one study she covers Harvey Wiley, a member of the U.S. Bureau of Chemistry, discovers that in 1904 that many preservatives, are harmful to our kidneys and livers (126-28). This can cause many
About 10,000 diverse species of pigments and dyes are used in industries, which show that an annual use of almost 7×105 tonnes in world. Dyes are intractable and toxic materials, they oppose biological breakdown (Souza et al., 2007).
America’s food source has altered drastically in the last century and so has the health of many. Americans used to thrive on natural foods for nutritional value, now Americans thrive on processed and manufactured food for just for convenience. Food companies have changed the very way we view nutrition. They have taken chemistry to a whole new level and added what they want it to what we now call food even if that harms our bodies in the long run. Food companies have also caused many hard working farmers to lose their jobs. These food companies have lost insight as to what is truly important in a food product and don’t care if that means taking someone else’s job.
Take a second to understand why fast food firms choose to sell products that are unhealthy. Their unhealthy products are in a high demand in the food market; in fact, they are simply giving us what we demand for. Most firms have started putting food labels on their menus so there is no room for excuse when making the right food choices. Nobody is forcing us to eat a whole box of Krispy crème donuts or a super-size meal at McDonalds. I believe that we are always looking for shortcuts in life and now we can anticipate there is a shortcut in what we put into our bodies. So we are consistently after things that are cheap, fast and affordable. Who better to attend to our needs than the fast food industry?
More and More people are becoming concerned about what they eat, especially if they consume food products that are manufactured in food industries. However, it is hard to know what exactly you are consuming if food industries provide false nutrition content and mislead consumers by placing false advertisements on the packaging. When a company produces a product that contains misleading label, consumers are not receiving complete information about the food they are eating which could lead to health issues including allergies and problems with diabetes.
Scientists are attempting to persuade these companies, such as Nestle, Coca-Cola, Frito Lays, Pillsbury, etc. to discuss new ingredients that are healthier or decrease the amount of each ingredient in their products. Also, scientist want these companies to place warning labels on each package that contain high amounts of sodium and sugar. Food, nutrition and obesity all contribute to one another. All across the world, people are too busy to really sit down and think about what they are consuming into their bodies and how it affects them. Parents are ignoring the facts about proper nutrition for growing children and instead making quick trips to fast food restaurants when they are too busy to create a healthy meal for their children. Unfortunately, my views on food, nutrition, and obesity in America differ from the views that these authors have, but some of my opinions and theirs are