Your Lucky Charms And Trix Just Got A Healthy Upgrade

Ingredients are changing this year, big time. Following the US Department of Health and Human Services and US Food & Drug Administration’s announcement in April 2025 of measures to phase out petroleum-based synthetic dyes from processed foods, major brands left, right, and center have been responding by changing what’s in their food and how they color it. M&M’s, Little Debbie, Dr Pepper, Takis, and plenty besides have either stated that they’d be removing artificial dyes (or certified colors) from their products, or have already done so, ahead of the 2027 deadline that the aforementioned two departments provided food companies. 

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The latest to act is General Foods, the company that owns Lucky Charms and Trix. It’s just confirmed that its cereals are now no longer made with certified colors. Here’s what we know. 

No Certified Colors Here

Yesterday, General Foods announced that all of its cereals in the US will now be made without certified colors. Its line includes Lucky Charms and Trix, but also Monster Cereals, Cocoa Puffs, Fruity Cheeros, and plenty of others. This move is in line with General Foods’ timeline for the removal of certified colors from its line, and previously it had removed them from all K-12 school foods. 

In its press release, it says that it “remains on track to remove certified colors from its full U.S. retail portfolio by the end of 2027, including fruit snacks and baking products.” General Mills manufactures a large number of products in both markets, including Betty Crocker, Fruit Roll-Ups, Fruit By The Foot, Gusher’s, and Mott’s, which it will no doubt be examining and reformulating going forward.

And Are Certified Colors Actually Unhealthy?

As UT MD Anderson states, there are two main health concerns around artificial food dyes and their longer-term effects. The first is their potential link with hyperactivity and neurobehavioural issues in children, although further research would need to be conducted to establish the causal link between these and certified colors. The second is their link to cancer risk and development, with Red No. 3 dye found to cause tumors in rats in two separate studies. Although it was noted that the dye may not cause cancer in the same way in humans, an FDA clause stating that additives that cause cancer in either humans or animals can’t be used in foods meant that it had to be phased out. Questions remain around the long-term effects of other artificial dyes.