Color seemed to be a big news topic last week, and I’m not talking about race, or dresses, I’m talking color. Not just the “Is it gold is it blue?” kind of scientific color theory discussions that all the wise entertainment anchors were espousing, but big announcements from the world of industrial food and Foodiness™.
Nestle’, one of the worlds biggest manufacturers of packaged, processed food and Foodiness products, announced last week that they’d be removing all artificial colors and flavors from their existing line of candy bars by next year, and all new products would be free of artificial flavors and colors going forward. That’s Big news. It’s something, right?
Here’s the exact text from the press release:
“Nestlé is the world’s leading nutrition, health and wellness company and our commitment to remove artificial flavors and certified colors in our chocolate candy brands is an important milestone,” said Doreen Ida, president, Nestlé USA Confections & Snacks. “We know that candy consumers are interested in broader food trends around fewer artificial ingredients. As we thought about what this means for our candy brands, our first step has been to remove artificial flavors and colors without affecting taste or increasing the price. We’re excited to be the first major U.S. candy manufacturer to make this commitment.”
Huh, sounds very admirable, respectable, I applaud them. Good on ya’ Nestle’, maybe it’ll make up for all that baby formula you dumped on those developing countries in the 70s and 80’s…? Those countries that didn’t have safe, reliably clean water to mix with said formula and so thousands of babies died of waterborne illnesses because you told their mothers to give them formula instead of nursing them?
Well, that’s all in the past…who are we to hold a grudge if it means that our Nestle crunch bar is now made with REAL vanilla instead of vanillin, or our Butterfinger has natural yellow dye from annatto seed instead of red #40 and yellow #5? I mean, what’s more important, in the global economy, in the bigger picture, a healthy Baby Ruth…or a dead one?…. yikes, dead babies. Too much? Well, that’s what I’m here for…