Does your child’s school participate in Box Tops for Education? It’s a program designed to earn money for schools. It’s billed as an easy way to contribute to your child’s school just by bringing in the box tops to products you already feed your family. But, are the participating products really something we should be encouraging our children to eat? Processed foods can be loaded with ingredients that you never want to feed your children. Research has shown that junk food can not only be addictive, it can also prevent kids from trying new foods. An even pickier eater is certainly not something parents want to deal with. Whole foods are always the best option, but can you still participate in the box tops program and avoid things like persistent pesticides, food dyes, and GMOs?
I decided to take a closer look at box top products and separate the good from the bad. You shouldn’t have to sacrifice the health of your children for funding their education. I was pleased to see that better brands have been added to list, so you do have options.
Table of Contents
Cereal
The majority of this list is going to be filled with sugar, as most cereals are, but there are a few organic and GMO free options. Scanning through the ingredient lists of the cereals below there was plenty to be concerned about. High sugar content, hydrogenated oils, and additives can all be found. In fact, some of these cereals made our list of the Top 10 Toxic Kids Cereals to Avoid At All Costs. Stick with the best choices to avoid GMOs, and the organic options to avoid artificial ingredients and pesticides as well.
Best Choices for Box Tops:
- Cascadian Farm™ Organic
- Cascadian Farm™ Protein Granola Organic
- Cheerios™ (Original) GMO Free
Avoid:
- Basic 4™
- Chex™
- Cinnamon Toast Crunch™
- Cocoa Puffs™
- Cookie Crisp™
- Fiber One™
- French Toast Crunch™
- Gluten Free Chex™ Oatmeal
- Golden Grahams™
- Honey Nut Clusters™
- Kix™
- Lucky Charms™
- Nature Valley™ Protein Crunchy Granola
- Oatmeal Crisp™
- Raisin Nut Bran
- Reese’s Puffs®
- Total™
- Trix™
- Wheaties™
Frozen Foods
There were only a few frozen food choices on the school box tops list. It was easy to spot the better options here. Choosing Annie’s variety of frozen products will leave your kid’s plate free from GMOs, which contain the likely cancer causing glyphosate. You also won’t find things like growth hormones or synthetic preservatives or additives that should be avoided.
Best Choice:
- Annie’s® Frozen Snacks GMO Free, No Artificial Ingredients, No Synthetic Colors or Preservatives, No Growth Hormones, No Persistent Pesticides
Avoid:
- Pillsbury™ Breakfast
- Totino’s™ Party Pizza® & Pizza Rolls® Snacks
Meals and Sides
It’s slim pickings when it comes to better options for meals and sides. Only Mac & Cheese made the list of better choices. The list to avoid is full of genetically modified corn, sugar beets, and more. Although there is no mandatory labeling of GMOs in the United States, these particular crops are primarily GM crops. They are more common than their non-GM counterparts, so it can be assumed that these unlabeled foods are GMO. Without mandatory labeling, we just don’t know what’s in the food. Choosing organic or Non GMO verified foods are currently the only way to know if a product is free from genetically modified organisms.
Best Choices:
- Annie’s® Mac & Cheese GMO Free, No Artificial Ingredients, No Synthetic Colors or Preservatives, No Growth Hormones, No Persistent Pesticides (Organic Options Available)
- Annie’s® Microwaveable Mac & Cheese Cups GMO Free, No Artificial Ingredients, No Synthetic Colors or Preservatives, No Growth Hormones, No Persistent Pesticides
Avoid:
- Betty Crocker™ Bowl Appetit
- Betty Crocker™ Hamburger, Chicken & Tuna Helpers
- Betty Crocker™ Helper Complete Meals
- Betty Crocker™ Specialty Potatoes & Potato Buds
- Betty Crocker™ Suddenly Salad
- Old El Paso™ Bold Stand n’ Stuff Shells
- Old El Paso™ Dinner Kits
- Old El Paso™ Rice & Beans
- Old El Paso™ Shells & Seasonings
- Old El Paso™ Soft Tortilla Taco Boats
- Old El Paso™ Stand n’ Stuff Shells
- Progresso™ Panko
- Progresso™ Bread Crumb MixersTM
- Progresso™ Soup
- Progresso™ Broth
Snacks
You can load up on box tops in the snack aisle. There is an abundance of snacks that are both GMO free and some organic options as well. You’ll be leaving behind artificial dyes which can cause hyperactivity and allergic reactions in children.
Best Choices:
- Annie’s® Cookies GMO Free, No Artificial Ingredients, No Synthetic Colors or Preservatives, No Growth Hormones, No Persistent Pesticides (Organic Options Available)
- Annie’s® Crackers GMO Free, No Artificial Ingredients, No Synthetic Colors or Preservatives, No Growth Hormones, No Persistent Pesticides (Organic Options Available)
- Annie’s® Fruit Snacks GMO Free, No Artificial Ingredients, No Synthetic Colors or Preservatives, No Growth Hormones, No Persistent Pesticides (Organic Options Available)
- Annie’s® Granola Bars GMO Free, No Artificial Ingredients, No Synthetic Colors or Preservatives, No Growth Hormones, No Persistent Pesticides (Organic Options Available)
- Annie’s® Snack Mix GMO Free, No Artificial Ingredients, No Synthetic Colors or Preservatives, No Growth Hormones, No Persistent Pesticides (Organic Options Available)
- Cascadian Farm™ Granola Bars Organic
- Food Should Taste Good™ Snacks GMO Free
- LARABAR™ (multipacks) GMO Free
- LARABAR™ RENOLA Grain Free Granola GMO Free
Avoid:
- Betty Crocker™ Fruit Flavored Snacks
- Bugles™
- Cereal Treat Bars
- Cheerios™ Snack Mix
- Chex Mix™
- Fiber One™ Bars, Brownies, Cookies, and Streusel
- Gardetto’s™ Snacks
- Nature Valley™ Bars
- Nature Valley™ Granola Bites
- Nature Valley™ Protein Soft Baked Granola Bites
- Pillsbury™ Baguette Chips
- Ocean Spray® Fruit Flavored Snacks
With the addition of organic brands and brands committed to the integrity of their food, it’s certainly easier to participate in the Box Tops for Education program. It’s comforting to see a shift towards these brands and only goes to show that if we, the consumer, demand a change we will get it.
Grassfed Label Standards Dropped by the USDA
With the addition of organic brands and brands committed to the integrity of their food, it’s certainly easier to participate in the Box Tops for Education program. It’s comforting to see a shift towards these brands and only goes to show that if we, the consumer, demand a change we will get it.
I appreciate that someone spent a lot of time researching this information. However, it is replete with so much misinformation that OCA should not be advocating it.
1) Annie’s and Cascadian Farms are owned by General Mills which produces numerous GMO- and glyphosate-containing products. These brands are part of the Traitor Organic brands whose parent companies contribute to denying our Right to Know. Cheeries is NOT non-GMO certified.
2) Larabars are not organic and only a few are non-GMO verified.
3) The author states that junk food can be addictive and prevents kids from trying new foods. Then the author provides macaroni and cheese as the only organic alternatives for collecting box tops. And what are the mictowavable cheese cups made of? Plastic??
4) Food Should Taste Good is the only company I am not familiar with. But, considering the other suggestions, this one is likely bad, too.
In conclusion, the author should simply have stated to avoid the box top addiction, buy organic and non-GMO from companies that you don’t recognize the names of, and just donate $5 to your kids’ schools. After all, each box top is only worth ten cents to your school. You would have to buy 50 products to come up with just $5 for the school.
As an added bonus, donations to your school are tax-deductible. Just say No to Traitor Organic companies fighting against your Right to Know what’s in your food.
The most insidious facet of this is that these companies are using our children and their education (schools) to instigate a form of extortion!
Thanks for this. My son is just leaving elementary school this year, and my daughter is a few years out. For the past decade we’ve dealt with this box-top nightmare. The kids are subtly made to feel tht they aren’t helping the school, but we rarely buy products that include the box-tops. This is clearly a scheme to get kids to eat junk. Administrators would say they’re eating the junk anyway – I’d respond that they should be eating generic junk as opposed to brand name junk.
Now at the middle-school level, my daughter (and I guess millions of kids around the world) are reading the same book. By who? Disney! On it goes.