June 2016: Burger King and Frito-Lay unleash Mac n’ Cheetos—portable bites of mac and cheese in a Cheeto-flavored crust. The limited-time-only item sells out at Burger King in weeks.
October 2017: Frozen boxes of Mac n’ Cheetos—Creamy Cheddar or Flamin’ Hot—hit supermarket freezer cases across the country.
“Cheetos are everywhere now,” CNN.com reported in December.
Yup. Now you can just roll off the couch and shuffle into the kitchen whenever you feel yourself running dangerously low on calories (just three thumb-size pieces of Creamy Cheddar pack 260) or refined carbs or saturated fat (4 grams) or sodium (520 milligrams).
Mac n’ Cheetos may look like mini mozzarella sticks, but ounce for ounce they have no more protein than Cheetos. That’s because they contain more water, white flour, and oil than cheese.
But don’t worry. They’ve got enough artificial flavors, food dyes (Yellow 5 and 6), starches (potato, corn), gums (acacia, cellulose, xanthan), acids (citric, lactic, sorbic), phosphates, and MSG to make Cheetos fans feel right at home.
“With the release of Mac n’ Cheetos for at-home consumption, fans now have the ability to up their snacking game with this crowd-pleasing favorite,” crowed Frito-Lay’s senior director of marketing innovation in a press release.
Some game.
Photo: Jennifer Urban/CSPI.
Find this article interesting and useful? Nutrition Action Healthletter subscribers regularly get sound, timely information about staying healthy with diet and exercise, delicious recipes, and detailed analyses of the healthy and unhealthy foods in supermarkets and restaurants. If you don’t already subscribe to the world’s most popular nutrition newsletter, click here to join hundreds of thousands of fellow health-minded consumers.
The post Why ‘Cheetos are everywhere now’ appeared first on Nutrition Action.
More détails