I realized something this week that first made me enormously angry, and then just really sad. I have been buying Cascadian Farm's organic Purely O's cereal for my toddler for about four months now. I chose this brand over Cheerios and Trader Joe's O cereal because it was organic AND only had fruit juice as the sweetener. In an age where everything seems to have added cane sugar and high fructose corn syrup I was very happy to find Purely O's.
Then something happened a few days ago. I noticed the Os in new box I purchased were a slightly lighter color, so I tasted one. It was REALLY sweet. Upon looking at the label I saw that for some reason there's now sugar, tapioca syrup and molasses. WHAT! Now they have three times the sugar as Cheerios! And no warning on the label that there's now added sugar to Lizzie's favorite formerly healthful snack.
So I wrote the company explaining the reasons I stated above for choosing their product and my confusion at the new ingredients. This was their response:
Thank you for contacting Cascadian Farm regarding your dissatisfaction with the recent reformulation of Cascadian Farm organic Purely O's cereal.
Our goal is to give consumers quality products at a good value. Prior to introducing any product, extensive consumer testing is done. We conduct market research and product testing continuously to obtain consumer reaction to existing products and to changes being considered. Only when we feel confident that a product change will broaden its appeal will we alter a product’s formulation. We are sorry that you do not agree that the recent change in Cascadian Farm organic Purely O's cereal was for the better.
We appreciate your loyalty to General Mills and hope you continue to choose our products.
Sincerely,
Katie Gafler
Consumer Services
I do believe that in a taste test the average American would choose the sweeter product, we are so programmed to expect sugar that I don't blame the taste testers. But what about those of us who don't WANT the sugar! I'm not the only mom who noticed and is a bit pissed off. On Urban Baby. com there are quite a few complaints. I'm glad it's not just me.
Now I'm just sad that the one more product has fallen victim to the sugar mentality. And I'm sad that because of childhood obesity Lizzie's generation is the first predicted to have a shorter life expectancy than my generation. How can we keep our kids healthy and slim if everything they eat is loaded with sugar? I'll keep looking and shopping around and hopefully I can find another organic and cane sugar-free version of Cheerios.
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