- Free Mac And Cheese Day
- Mac And Cheese With Velveeta
- Dye Free Mac And Cheese Recipe
- Mac And Cheese Recipe Paula Deen
- Gluten Free Mac And Cheese
- Perfect Mac and Cheese in 5 Steps: Preheat the oven. Preheat to 325 degrees and lightly grease a square baking dish. Cook the macaroni. Slightly undercook your noodles (about 1 minute under al-dente). Drain and set aside. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat.
- Mar 06, 2013 Two women are lobbying for the food-maker to stop using two kinds of food dye. March 7, 2013— - Lisa Leake's children used to love the taste of Kraft's Mac & Cheese, the bright orange pasta.
There’s been a lot of talk about Kraft putting artificial dyes Yellow #5 and Yellow #6 in their Kraft Mac and Cheese. A few bloggers started an online petition to get Kraft to remove the dye from its Mac and Cheese saying that it can cause cancer and make your kids hyper.
As we noted last time, Kraft says the dye is federally approved and perfectly safe.
Free Mac And Cheese Day
While the bloggers compared Kraft Mac & Cheese to it’s dye-free British counterpart (Kraft Cheesy Pasta) I pointed out that dye-free macaroni is available right now.
This afternoon I cooked up three boxes of macaroni: Kraft original, Kraft Organic and Annie’s Macaroni and Cheese. I wanted to see for myself if there’s really a big difference in color–and taste. Kraft Organic and Annie’s don’t use Yellow #5 and #6.
Easy mac and cheese cups include macaroni pasta and original flavor cheese sauce mix so you have everything you need to make a delicious quick mac and cheese by just adding water. With no artificial flavors, no artificial preservatives, and no artificial dyes, our microwave macaroni and cheese cup always makes a great single serve mac.
Mac And Cheese With Velveeta
The first thing I noticed was the color of the raw noodles–the original Mac & Cheese was pale while both organics (which used a whole grain pasta) were more buttery colored. The color difference in the cheese packets were obvious. Original Kraft has a bright orange hue, Organic Kraft is very bland and Annie’s was pale gold.
In order to give the pastas the best chances of a similar taste I used real butter and 2% milk to mix up all three.
The results were what you would expect–after all Kraft knows their stuff. My 5 year old said the pale yellow Organic Kraft looked yucky, but he said the Annie’s orange noodles looked just as good as the Original Kraft. But after tasting them, he said they were all good.
My 14 year old, who has considerably more experience with Mac & Cheese, said he liked the Original Kraft best for color and flavor. I believe his remark was “government approved chemicals taste good!” Smart arse.
After I tasted all three, I have to say the Kraft Original was still the best for flavor. Color doesn’t matter to a grown up. Both the Annie’s and the Organic Kraft were bland and buttery in taste. Which is not the same as cheap–have you ever had a box of no-name mac & cheese? Ewww. These weren’t bad, just not as good. If you put it on a plate next to your fish sticks one night, you’d be happy. But the Kraft Original was the only one with a tangy kick to it.
A Note on cheese color:
I have no idea why Kraft makes their Mac & Cheese bright orange. BUT I did do a little research and I can tell you the natural color of cheese depends on the kind of grass cows eat. According to this article on Slate if a cow grazes on rich summer grass they give milk that turns cheese into a deeper yellow color. A poor diet results in less fat in the milk, less fat makes pale cheese. English farmers had this figured out waaaaaay back in the 16th century and added carrot juice or marigold petals to perk up the color of cheese.
Download os el capitan dmg. The Cheese Underground reports that cheese makers in Wisconsin started coloring cheddar with Annatto seeds in the 18th century. It seems that once farmers started feeding corn to their cows instead of grass, the milk produced a pale cheese. As a bonus, the orange cheese was easy for customers to spot compared to pale yellow New York cheese.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/46171640/GettyImages-120331311.0.jpg "Dye Free Mac And Cheese")
It would seem cheese color has always been about marketing!
Have you noticed all the chatter about Mac & Cheese lately?
Vani Hari of Food Babe and Lisa Leake of 100 Days of Real Food started it all by asking Americans to vote on their Change.org petition to get Kraft to remove yellow dyes #5 and #6 from all its versions of Kraft Mac & Cheese.
They’re saying that artificial yellow #5 and #6 are tied to cancer and can make your kids hyper. You can read more on the blogger’s opinion and see a video they posted here at Take Part. The artificial food dyes are only used to add an “aesthetically pleasing color” to the product–so it’s a no brainer for Kraft to pull the ingredient.
Kraft says the dyes are safe according to the FDA and there’s nothing wrong with their Mac and Cheese.
Now I’m no food Nazi, but it seems to me that if you’re freaked out about food dye, you probably don’t even EAT something as fake as powdered cheese. I’m going to guess that these bloggers don’t eat boxed Mac & Cheese either–in their video they say how it “brings back memories.” I don’t think they were talking about last Thursday.
Anyway, the ladies have a good point and tell us the dyes are already out of British Mac & Cheese made by Kraft. You know what’s more interesting? You can get dye free Mac & Cheese at your local grocery store. Right now.
There’s no need to jump on Amazon and get your Mac & Cheese (or Cheesy Pasta) from England. I dropped by Dierbergs yesterday and picked up three boxes of dye-free mac & cheese, two from Kraft itself and one from Annie’s.
The dye-free macaroni use either paprika, annatto or beta carotene to color the food–all are from natural sources. Are these products more expensive than standard Mac & Cheese? Yes. But is it just because of the dye? Hard to say–they all have “deluxe” features, like organic ingredients and gourmet flavors.
The two Kraft flavors without artificial dye are Organic (which is hard to find at most grocery stores, hence the trip to Dierbergs) and White Cheddar.
Dye Free Mac And Cheese Recipe
While I was in the pasta aisle I picked up a few other boxes and checked them out. Both the house brand and Betty Crocker’s macaroni had Yellow #5 and #6.
Velveeta Shells and Cheese (also a Kraft product) uses paprika and annatto for coloring. No artificial dye here.
If you want to mix up your own noodles and cheese without breaking a sweat, Velveeta, Cheez Whiz and Ragu Double Cheddar Cheese sauce use natural food coloring.