General Mills gets into the gluten free game

May 21, 11:17 AMAtlanta Gluten-Free Food ExaminerTiffany Janes

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When General Mills introduced gluten free Rice Chex cereal last year, you would have thought someone had invented a gluten free Krispy Kreme doughnut instead. The new cereal was sweetened with molasses  instead of barley malt but they tasted just like the original Rice Chex. Most mainstream cereals contain barley malt even if they're wheat free, making them unsuitable for people with Celiac disease or gluten intolerance.

Fast forward to early 2009 and the announcement by General Mills about the reformulation of five more flavors of Chex cereals, to make them gluten free. Obviously our community bought a lot of Rice Chex in order for this new development in the General Mills marketing plan to come about, which is exactly what we were hoping for.

It's quite exciting to be able to enjoy Honey Nut and Cinnamon Chex for breakfast and using Corn Chex for homemade snack mix (along with Rice Chex). I'm sure plenty of gluten free kids will enjoy the Strawberry and Chocolate Chex though you could not pay me to eat either one. 

What makes this news most exciting for our community is that now both Post and Kellogs are not going to be able to ignore us anymore. Cereal wars are tough and the other big players in the game are not going to allow General Mills to rake in the profits for all mainstream gluten free cereal sales in this country. It simply isn't going to happen.

Though I think the new Rice Chex are fine, I prefer the Honey Nut Chex and  will try the Cinnamon Chex as soon as I spot them on the grocery store shelf. There are reports of the Corn Chex being in Atlanta now but I'd only use those during the holidays when I make my favorite gluten free Chex party mix. It's basically the standard recipe using Rice Chex and now Corn Chex. In the past I had to use Health Valley Corn  and Rice Crunch-ums which are exorbitantly expensive. It will be interesting to see if Health Valley discontinues these products now that we can get basically the same cereals for less from General Mills.