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Jan 02, 2014 • By Tom Forsythe

The One and Only Cheerios

Consumers across the U.S. are seeing “not made with genetically modified ingredients” this week on familiar yellow boxes of original Cheerios.

Did we change Cheerios?

No. Not really.

Original Cheerios has always been made with whole grain oats, and there are no GMO oats. We do use a small amount of corn starch in cooking, and just one gram of sugar per serving for taste. And now that corn starch comes only from non-GM corn, and our sugar is only non-GM pure cane sugar.

What changed is how we source and handle certain ingredients in our plants.

Why change anything at all? It’s simple. We did it because we think consumers may embrace it.

General Mills offers non-GM choices in most of our major categories in the U.S., and now we can say the same about the ingredients in original Cheerios.

But it’s not about safety. Biotech seeds, also known as genetically modified seeds, have been approved by global food safety agencies and widely used by farmers in global food crops for almost 20 years.

And it was never about pressure. In fact, General Mills’ position on GMOs hasn’t changed.

Neither has Cheerios, really. The simple and unique nature of Cheerios made this possible – and it’s not much of a change at all. The product is essentially the same.

So take heart Cheerios lovers! Cheerios isn’t changing. It’s still the One and Only.

Editor’s note: For more information, visit Cheerios.com.