Way back in the early 80s after Nutrasweet came out I have a vague memory of seeing a Nutrasweet pre-sweetened kid’s cereal being advertised on TV, but it quickly disappeared.
Regardless of whether or not that existed, why aren’t there any now? Being that all kid’s cereals have huge amounts of sugar in them (some having it as the main ingredient) wouldn’t it be a really good idea? Wouldn’t it greatly appeal to parents and therefore be a big seller?
Was that one I sort of remember killed by the evil industrial/cereal complex?
I don’t know if you’re going to get a definite answer, as I imagine it’s some mixture of focus group taste tests, cost, and interest, but I believe there are “sugar-free”, or technically low sugar formulations using Splenda.
I’m not disputing this, but I want to research it some more - do you have an example of a cereal that has sugar as the main ingredient (presumably by weight)?
Plenty of parents are leery of letting their kids consume aspartame or other sugar substitutes so there isn’t much demand for a kid’s cereal made with sugar substitutes.
Whoa, that explains a lot. I remember trying a sample at a grocery store and getting a headache afterward. I thought I was just tired, but now I know it was this. Thanks a lot General Mills. :mad:
Exactly what I expected it to say. If it has the same calories and the same carbs, being low sugar doesn’t mean all that much to me. And it certainly doesn’t impress me enough to justify the higher price.
You’re probably thinking of Halfsies, which used sugar and Nutrasweet instead of all sugar. I remember it tasting pretty much like Cap’n Crunch. The wikipedia article says it was discontinued due to poor sales.
‘Halfsies’, that sounds somewhat familiar. I also remember noticing the so-called ‘sugar backlash’ when:[ul]
[li]Sugar Frosted Flakes became just Frosted Flakes[/li][li]Sugar Smacks became first Honey Smacks then Smacks then back to Honey Smacks[/li][li]Sugar Corn Pops --> Corn Pops --> Pops --> Corn Pops etc.[/li][/ul]Yeah, if it didn’t reduce the calories and cost more, it wouldn’t make much sense.
Being diabetic I’ve been using Nutrasweet et al. for years and even though I laugh at people who are scared of them I also know that sugar has not been proven to cause any health problems other than tooth decay.
I’d wager a guess that people are all that worried about how much sugar their kids eat don’t buy them cereals like Fruit Loops and Honey Crisp on a regular basis. Instead they would do what my parents did and buy stuff like Corn Flakes or Rice Crispies or Chex, that we could each sweeten or not as desired.