Originally Posted By: IndyIan
The main issue with stuff in card board boxes is the additives to create it and to keep it fresh. Modified corn starch and tripotassium phosphate probably aren't the greatest things to eat all the time, and the stuff used to make those isn't good either.
That said, we still have a few boxes of cereal in the house and I don't mind the kids having it once in a while, but the regular breakfast at our place for the kids is usually our eggs and homemade bread, with some tomatoes, or some fruit. No mystery sugar juice.
If you want to eat oats, regular oatmeal is a better way to do it than cheerios IMO.
I see what you are saying and have nothing against it. In the case of Cheerios, the starch (which isn't modified) is merely a dry or wet milled starch, nothing different than milling white flour. Just removing everything except the endosperm. Its used for holding the Cheerio together, just like you use starch at home for making paper mache balloons. Tripotassium phosphate may sound scary but it's a salt (like NaCl) of phosphoric acid. Its used for two reasons - salts of acids are more soluble (so I can use less) and its an emulsifier. Oats are about 6.5% fat, so when its ground into a flour, cooked and extruded into the little circles, there is nothing holding the fat together. The phosphate binds it to the water so the fat doesn't rise to the surface of the circle and become oily/greasy. It also adds potassium and phosphate, both needed by the body.
Additives are added to the food mainly for oxidation, color and flavor and right now a lot of companies have or are switching to no artificial ingredients, including preservatives. Typically natural preservatives were never used in the past because they are more expensive and don't work as good. Seems like on BITOG more people voice that they eat foods that are in general healthier, but for a majority of people they aren't willing to sacrifice taste, especially if the price went up to pay for the higher cost ingredients. Case in point is Trix from General Mills, they switched to all natural and their sales tanked. They brought back the old formula and offer both. Turns out kids and the parents that buy the cereal aren't as concerned about being free from artificials.