Fake Health Food: Kashi

I’m not going to lie, until recently I had a bowl of Kashi GoLean cereal just about every morning and I felt pretty good about eating it. After all it had a lot of protein and fiber in it, just what my body needs. Then something alarming started to happen, I became more and more aware of what I was putting into my body and some of the websites I began to visit discussed how Kashi really isn’t as healthy as it reports itself to be. At first I was in a state of denial, ‘ My Kashi wouldn’t include GMO laced ingredients in their products, it just wouldn’t!’, but as time progressed I finally saw the light; the Kashi brand is a fake health food

Kashi bills itself as a natural brand that is healthy to eat and feel good about. They make only a few organic products, so mostly they are using the term ‘natural’ as a marketing gimmick for people to buy their food. The ingredients themselves, for the most part, in their products aren’t bad; no HFCS for example. However, the majority of them are not organic or healthy because they contain GMOs. Here is what Kashi has to say on their Facebook page when they are confronted on the issue:

We are listening and can appreciate your concern about GMOs. We also believe in organic agriculture as an important tool in a sustainable food system. That’s why 46% of our annual grain supply is organically grown and we source about 35 million pounds of organic ingredients per year. As a result, we have increased our production of organic foods significantly since 2004. We hope that you and your members will purchase more organic foods from Kashi and other manufacturers as it may help to increase the amount of organic ingredients available in the US. From Kathy at Kashi

So, according to them they use less than half organic ingredients in their products, meaning that the other 54% of ingredients are GMO based. That isn’t exactly natural is it. It certainly doesn’t make me think of one of their employees walking through a jungle fondling mangoes like they do in those commercials that they run. All natural should mean ingredients that are not based on something that is created in a lab.

On their website they have something called ‘Make A Real Food Promise’:

To living well. To eating better. To ingredients grown in the sun. To giving your body the good food it needs. To a better you. To choosing real, whole foods that care for you and the environment.

I’m sorry but 54% of the ingredients that you use are not ‘real, whole foods’. Instead, some scientist at Monsanto threw a bunch of chemicals together and created a frankenfood concoction, that is anything but what you say that you represent and support.

Kellogg’s, which owns Kashi, certainly took the ‘natural’ foods gig and ran with it, didn’t they? You won’t find the Kellogg’s name anywhere on any of the Kashi products, or on the website. Perhaps because they know that savvy shoppers automatically can figure out that their products are overly processed junk foods that contain equally junk ingredients. By purchasing Kashi they automatically bought into the ‘natural’ foods market and started a blitz advertising campaign acting like they are the warriors for ‘real food’. Their commercials always have one of their bohemian employees walking around touching food, nodding at native people and talking about how concerned they are about the environment. Well, if Kellogg’s really cared about the environment they wouldn’t be purchasing GMO laced ingredients, would they? GMO crops contaminate other crops and who knows what the hell the end product does to our health!

All of this has me thinking about whether or not Kashi’s organic products are actually organic. Why only make a few organic and not the rest? It’s like they got lazy at their factory and decided it wasn’t worth trying to be truly healthy all the way. Do they even make their organic cereals in dedicated facilities, or do they make them on the same machines as they make their non-organic products? I guess we’ll never know.

Do you know what I would like to see? More lawsuits brought upon companies such as this who claim that their food is healthy and natural when in fact it contains GMOs. A lawsuit has been filed in California against ConAgra foods for promoting Wesson oils as 100% natural, when in fact it contains GMO ingredients. If this lawsuit goes through and succeeds it may set the stage for other companies being held responsible for their fake claims.

Never trust what a company says. If they are pushing their whole ‘natural’ angle so hard that it hurts chances are their product isn’t really as natural as they claim it to be. Always question these companies when it comes to their products and their advertising tactics.