Some things on this Earth are constant: The sky is a deep azure blue (unless you live in Los Angeles). The grass is a verdant green (unless you live in Los Angeles). And Kraft Macaroni And Cheese is a bright neon orange—an orange the color of radiation suits and safety cones, so you know to take precaution around it. But it seems all of that is changing. Kraft has announced that it will remove the artificial preservatives and synthetic colors from its beloved bowls of artificial preservatives and synthetic colors, a change that promises to take away the familiar yellow-orange tint you sort-of glimpse out of your peripheral vision, as you’re numbly shoving it into your face. As the saying goes, nothing vaguely gold can stay.
“Consumers have been telling us, and parents in particular, that they want to feel good about the foods that they eat and that they serve their families,” said Kraft’s vice president of marketing Triona Schmelter, of America’s many liars. However, these consumers’ insistence that the cheap prepackaged foods they purchase to put in their bodies, quickly and without forethought, just be made better somehow—including “more protein, calcium, and whole grains”—naturally came with a caveat.