Kraft Changed Its Mac and Cheese and Nobody Noticed

[Toliver]

The article:

"Kraft Changed Its Mac and Cheese and Nobody Noticed"

Quote

When Kraft announced last year it would axe artificial ingredients from its mac and cheese, some consumers expressed concern. Big food companies from Nestle to Taco Bell were axing artificial ingredients from their products left and right as consumers demanded "natural" foods, but would the changes affect the taste of the iconic blue box, a product that many Americans have grown up on?

Kraft announced that the revamped product would hit store shelves in January — but unbeknownst to customers, it quietly began selling the artificial-ingredient-free mac and cheese in December.

Of course, they're crowing all about their successful switching of ingredients (don't break your corporate arm, Kraft, patting yourself on the back for doing something you should have done in the first place  ).

So has anyone noticed any difference when making what's in the Blue Box? Or does it taste the same, so all is right with the world once again?

[Porthos]

I made some for lunch yesterday and it seemed saltier. I will hold judgment until I have had more. It is comfort food for me.

[rotuts]

for some reason  i can't copy /paste from the above ref

 

 

moving so down,  they in April they were changing the Rx.  There was "" Excitement  ""

 

really ? from who ?

 

its a tiny tiny shame they don't have to pay for their words.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

My husband loves mac and cheese so much that I make it often. Usually with good white or yellow American cheese from the deli, butter, milk, and elbows. It really doesn't take a lot longer than the boxed stuff, and it doesn't even create any more dishes to wash, as you just tear the cheese slices into the milk and butter. Sometimes I will run out of fresh American cheese, and unprocessed cheeses are just too grainy in stove top mac and cheese.

 

I do use the boxed stuff that lives a long time on a pantry shelf at times. For years, I was loyal to the blue box Kraft brand because it tasted better than the generic or store brands that I attempted to save money with. Then several years ago, they dropped dried cheddar cheese, which was an ingredient for many, many years, and began relying on whey and other "stuff" for flavor, and that is what I thought the OP was talking about, when he said no one noticed. Well I did notice, and stopped buying it in favor of the Food Lion store brand which does contain dried cheddar cheese and tastes better than the cheeseless Kraft. Bonus: the store brand is also cheaper.

 

If they have indeed changed their recipe, I might give Kraft mac and cheese another whirl, but only if it contains actual cheese. I'm just peculiar that way. 

 

Edited to Add: I just had another thought that perhaps the lack of cheese is why it is called Kraft Dinner in Canada instead if Mac and Cheese. Our government stewards are not well known for the protection of us hapless consumers from our corporate benefactors.

Edited March 9, 2016 by Thanks for the Crepes (log)

[Deryn]

It 'used to be' called Kraft Dinner in Canada. It has now been renamed to 'KD' - which is a title even less explanatory of its contents! Read the labels, folks.

[AlaMoi]

I don't follow the wishy-washies of prepared junk foods, so I'm not really sure this is correct comma however,,,,

as I dimly recall - Kraft et al were trumpeting their cutting edge activities of removing artificial _coloring_ agents.

 

which begets the question,,,,  in a blind taste test, would ugly homemade non-color perfect mac&cheese taste better than the out-of-a-box with red&yellow dye #1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9?

[Deryn]

1 hour ago, AlaMoi said:

I don't follow the wishy-washies of prepared junk foods, so I'm not really sure this is correct comma however,,,,

as I dimly recall - Kraft et al were trumpeting their cutting edge activities of removing artificial _coloring_ agents.

 

which begets the question,,,,  in a blind taste test, would ugly homemade non-color perfect mac&cheese taste better than the out-of-a-box with red&yellow dye #1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9?

 

My mac and cheese would taste better than any 'out of the box' M&C I have ever tasted - however, I am not sure that is a fair comparison ... they are just very different products despite the name being somewhat similar.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

4 hours ago, AlaMoi said:

I don't follow the wishy-washies of prepared junk foods, so I'm not really sure this is correct comma however,,,,

as I dimly recall - Kraft et al were trumpeting their cutting edge activities of removing artificial _coloring_ agents.

 

which begets the question,,,,  in a blind taste test, would ugly homemade non-color perfect mac&cheese taste better than the out-of-a-box with red&yellow dye #1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9?

 

Most yellow cheeses in the US are colored with annato, a natural dye from the seeds of achiote tree. This includes processed cheeses all the down to the arguably lowly Velveeta. If I want orange mac, I use orange cheese without artificial dyes. I have ground Badia annato in the pantry if I want to turn white American cheese orange. I would not be at all surprised if that is what Kraft is using as the coloring agent in their recipe now. The dry powder is quite shelf stable. I say good on Kraft for trying to improve their product. I just hope they put the cheese back in while they were at it. I will check this out next time I'm in the store, even if I end up not buying any.

 

There is nothing ugly about my homemade mac n' cheese, sir or madam.  And yes, to my palate, macaroni and cheese just tastes a hell of lot better than macaroni and whey and "stuff".

[Jon Savage]

My wife recently found a cheese powder at WinCo that is neither unpleasantly salted nor sugared. It does make a good sub for the Kraft M&C we all grew up with (OK admit it-- That is a taste memory we all like).

 

I was recently appalled by the Kraft stuff 'cos sugary... They must have changed the recipe because I don't recall sugar as having been a primary ingredient on said box before now but it is there now.

 

Anyhow...

 

That is what we use to do quick & dirty M&C- w/ the addition of a little good pasta & the Kraft box ratio of butter/milk/cheese powder pretty darn good. 

 

So that's my dirty secret.

 

Don't tell on me.

Edited March 10, 2016 by Jon Savage
clarity (log)

[gfweb]

My memory of what M&C tastes like is never matched by a current dish.  I'm beginning to suspect that M&C was actually never as good as I remember it to be.

[AlaMoi]

whee.  the old grey cells aren't as grey as I thought....

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kraft-removing-artificial-dyes-preservatives-from-mac-cheese/

 

/quote
Kraft says it will remove artificial preservatives and replace dyes with naturally sourced coloring ingredients like turmeric, paprika and annatto.This reformulation isn't entirely new for Kraft; the company has already changed its popular Mac & Cheese recipe for parts of the European Union where certain yellow artificial dyes are banned due to health concerns.
/unquote

[Porthos]

10 hours ago, Jon Savage said:

My wife recently found a cheese powder at WinCo ...

I'll check the ingredients list the next time I'm there. I've seen it but have been suspicious ....

[Deryn]

I was just at my small local 'co-op' grocery store (which is now supplied almost entirely by Sobey's - ugh) and spent a few minutes perusing the boxed mac and cheese (especially the Kraft) products and I see that ONLY 2 types of Kraft m&c 'dinner' (currently only the boxes labelled KD and containing 'shapes' for kids - underwater sea and abc's) have moved to annatto as the colouring agent.

 

The store now carries many 'versions' of Kraft m&c dinners it seems - whole wheat, extra 'veggies' (cauliflower in the pasta), spicy, white, etc. aside from the standard 'orange ... 'I grew up on it' variety. They varied in their ingredients - although most say 'cheese' is a part of their 'cheese' powder, that ingredient is always listed well after the 'whey'. Some of them had cellulose, others didn't. The boxes that still say Kraft Dinner on them all seem to contain something called tetrazine as a colourant. However, there was one good thing I noticed about the Kraft boxes - none of them seem to list any 'soybean oil', a substance I did find listed on the 'Compliments' (Sobey's store brand - often associated with Jamie Oliver whose name goes on some of their products) M&C 'dinner' boxes. Kraft purports to use 'butter' instead.

Edited March 10, 2016 by Deryn (log)

[willowen]

I noticed sometime after they stopped calling it Kraft Dinner in the US! That had to be no longer ago than the Seventies … but the skinny-box straight-noodle stuff was always called that in our house, as a distinctly different food from macaroni and cheese. That was made with elbows, and the sauce was white sauce with either real cheese or Velveeta melted into it. We kids were equally fond of both, the Dinner especially when Mom would cut up wieners into it.

 

I continued to like it into adulthood, especially because the "cheese" was of an amazing shade of orange seldom found in nature (some flowers and Florida sunsets, maybe). Although I value natural foods as much as the next tree-hugger, the openly unnatural ones always kinda tickled me even when I didn't like to eat them (i.e. cotton candy, ick!). Kraft Dinner was one I did like to eat, even after the price began to exceed the old 27¢ by quite a bit, even after it suddenly became Kraft Macaroni and Cheese … I'm just sorry I didn't stock up on the old ones before all this damn virtue kicked in. But I suppose I should give the new one a try. With hot dogs cut up in it, of course!

[gulfporter]

Dental work....post (any kind of) surgery.....flu recovery.....THAT's when I want (no, NEED) the blue box o' (almost) cheese.  And it's something my DH will prepare perfectly for me 3x a day when it's the only thing that goes down (and stays down).  

 

I had a new dental crown earlier this month and I assume the newly purchased boxes were of the New Generation.  Tasted the same to me (keep in mind I am often on pain meds and/or antibiotics, simultaneously).  

[IndyRob]

Well, I suppose I'm behind the times and really don't care what they do with their goo mix, but hasn't there been a big change in the size of the macaroni over the years?

 

I can still find 'large' macaroni at times, but the world seems to have migrated to this pixie sized macaroni that seems better suited to inclusion in Alphabet soup.

 

I feel that the longer cooking time required and the need for microwave suitability has really changed the nature of M&C.