As I was looking into topics to conduct a research, I came across the idea of food additives- things added to food to make it look or taste better. Processed and packaged foods rely on their appearance to draw consumers’ attention and their taste to keep consumers purchasing more. From there I searched “removing food additives,” “FDA’s regulations on food additives,” “harmful food additives,” and a bunch of other related phrases. Most of the sites I found mentioned this recent food trend of removing artificial food coloring because it has been linked to hyperactivity in more sensitive children and can possibly cause cancer. This article focuses on the cereal brand General Mills and their decision to take out artificial food coloring in a lot of their cereals including Trix. It cites a professor’s opinion on the brand’s ulterior motive. He claims that the removal of certain colors might have been to help sell more cereal rather than taking parents’ concerns into consideration. That would mean the company plans to use “no artificial food coloring” as an advertising game instead of keeping health as the main purpose. However, this article offers both pros and cons to the situation. Although professor Lang has a more negative opinion, the article still offers an optimistic tone about the change. It also explains how General Mills plans to maintain taste in a healthier way, and it gave a list of other companies planning to remove other food additives.
The article gave me a place to start my research paper. I started looking at more harmful effects of food coloring in packaged foods and the way these changes are presented on their boxes. I think this might be helpful because it is something specific to write about that would be easier to understand because colorful cereal is a very common concept.
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