Given the additives, there is very little that’s ‘real’ about Reese’s Puffs
Written by Ajay Chohan, Founder
Reese's Puffs - General Mills
Why the Reese’s Puffs product labeling is misleading: This is an unhealthy and ultra-processed cereal made with extruded & hence toxic grains. Also contains carcinogenic & toxic additives
Harmful Ingredients in Reese’s Puffs: Corn Starch, Caramel Color, Trisodium Phosphate, Added Sugars
Harmful Cereal Making Process used by Reese’s Puffs: Extrusion
Reese’s Puffs is made via extrusion - a high heat & pressure creating process that denatures grains making them toxic:
With Reese’s Puffs, as with most other cereals, the trouble starts with the way the cereal is made. These puffs are made via extrusion, a harmful process that takes corn grain through extremely high pressure and temperatures in an extruder and then emits it on the other end out of tiny holes in the form of various fluffy shapes.
This unnatural process changes the very nature of the grain & their proteins, making the denatured proteins toxic and harmful to our nervous system! (1). Puffed & extruded grains in Reese’s are thus toxic and unhealthy for our body.
Please Note:
Here is my article on the 3 wholesome and alive breakfast alternatives to the processed cereal +
Here is the complete guide to all the 7 unhealthy additives commonly found across breakfast cereals + my complete list of the worst cereal brands to avoid. I also cover extrusion more in depth here
The ingredients in Reese’s Puffs and links to blood sugar spikes, inflammation and more:
Getting into the ingredients, sugar is the second primary ingredient in Reese’s Puffs, containing 31 grams of sugar per every 100 grams of this cereal. That’s an obnoxious amount of sugar. Eating foods with high amounts of added sugars has been consistently linked with weight gain and diabetes.
The label boldly states the cereal being made with real Reese’s peanut butter. I don’t think this peanut butter is very “real” though. This peanut butter contains Corn Starch, which is made by removing the outer layer and shell of a corn kernel. Why does that matter? This makes corn starch a processed food containing only calories & carbohydrates; it is largely devoid of nutrients found in whole grain corn and is not wholesome. To make things worse, processed corn is well known to spike blood sugar, leading to higher insulin and a resulting inflammatory response from our bodies.
The cereal also contains Caramel Color, which is made “by reacting sugars with ammonia and sulfites under high pressure and temperatures” and was shown to cause lung, liver and thyroid cancers in studies on mice or rats (2). Reese’s Puffs also contains Trisodium Phosphate, which is added to cereals to help the slurry go through an extruder in the harmful extrusion process described above. This chemical also has industrial uses as a paint thinner and a detergent! Trisodium phosphate would not be needed in a wholesome cereal that has not undergone extrusion.
Reese’s Puffs is not a healthy breakfast choice:
This cereal is not nourishing for your body in any way. The next time we find ourselves researching if our favorite cereal is gluten free, dairy free, vegan or how many calories it has — let’s make sure to also research how it is produced! If something is not nourishing for your bodies, why eat it? As covered, the first two primary ingredients in this cereal are A. whole grain corn - which sounds nice but the ‘puffing’ effect is achieved by extrusion and extruded denatured grains are toxic for our bodies and B. added sugar. The rest of the ingredients and additives don’t get any better from there on out. My recommendation would be removing Reese’s Puffs from your family’s breakfast routine with immediate effect.
A better breakfast.
Foods we eat should be wholesome and alive. This starts with rich nutrient dense soil. Then, the harvested grains should only be minimally processed. And the breakfast that reaches our bowl needs to be absolutely free of additives, which often go hand in hand with ultra-processed foods. You can read my article here for quick yet healthy substitutes to eating overly processed cereal, from small producers mindful of the entire food journey.
Is (or was) Reese’s Puffs part of your daily diet? Share your thoughts below!