"Post will sell you a 15.9 oz. box of "classic" Grape-Nuts for $4.29, not including shipping and handling. You would have to be (grape-)nuts to buy the cereal online."
Fortunately, you can now buy the "classic" Grape-Nuts in your grocery store, no shipping or handling involved.
We lambasted Grape-Nuts slightly adding more protein to its classic cereal by adding isolated soy protein. Grape-Nuts already had plenty of protein, especially since the cereal maker undervalued the protein impact of what people typically serve themselves for breakfast.
Grape-Nuts Original is once again being made the way you remember — with our classic no-soy recipe! Try it (again!) today.
Now, Grape-Nuts is promoting itself as GMO-free. Well, the only way that was going to happen was to take out the soy. So they did. Think New Coke but with less publicity.
Grape-Nuts made the switch back to the original formula … in January.
Previous coverage:
What's Tempting: More protein in breakfast cereal
I had been avoiding Grape-Nuts on purpose because of the move it made last fall. Only when I happened to notice the new/old Grape-Nuts did I realize the switch.
This was like when Miracle Whip secretly switched back to high-fructose corn syrup, but in this case, the news is good.
Given that the switch lasted less than 6 months usually means a bad switch. Yes, Grape-Nuts got some publicity, bad publicity.
The anti-GMO tidal rise probably helped Post, owners of Grape-Nuts, to take advantage and push the GMO-free line. Promoting its "classic no-soy recipe" is hilarious because Post put soy in its cereal, just a few months ago.
The previous ½ cup size with 6 g of protein was pushed up to 8 g of protein in the soy version. The new "Original" Grape-Nuts now boasts 10 g of protein with milk. Let's break that down.
The protein hasn't changed: 6 g of protein for a ½ cup size. The milk is fat-free, of course, to make the other numbers look good. The 10 g of protein means we only get ½ cup of milk. ½ cup of cereal with a ½ cup of milk = 10 g of protein. That won't be too much to eat.
A cup of Grape-Nuts and a cup of milk — a more likely scenario — would equal 20 g of protein. That's a very nice way to start your day, especially when no animals were killed to provide that protein.
Grape-Nuts doesn't want to promote 20 g of protein, at least not with a cup of cereal.
The carbohydrates number is likely why Grape-Nuts doesn't want to promote the 20 g of protein. The number isn't terribly high but higher than a cup of sugary cereal.
Grape-Nuts could have offered a third alternative: ½ cup of cereal with a full 8 oz. glass of milk for 14 g of protein. True, your cereal would be swimming in milk.
We note often when companies oversell their nutrition advantages. Sometimes, companies will undervalue their nutrition advantages. The information isn't hiding; you just have to interpret the numbers on the labels. If you aren't sure, pour out a measured serving based on their sample size. Ask yourself whether you would have limited yourself to that size.
You aren't going to eat cereal for the protein, but if you are, you should know what you are getting in your bowl. Individual companies determine the serving size to put their product in the best light nutritionally. Our job is to figure out how much we would get based on our own personal serving size.
Grape-Nuts is back to normal, but hopefully we all learned a valuable lesson. Food companies: make sure changes are for the better for the consumer. Consumers: we need to pay better attention even when companies make foolish moves. They might just see the errors of their ways sooner than we would give them credit for doing.
photo credit: me
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