First, a disclaimer. I do not, nor have I ever had any relationship with Kraft foods.

I can honestly say, that Annie's Mac and Cheese is the worst thing I have ever put in my mouth. Horrid beyond belief. Nasty Nasty Nasty. My first reaction was, "Did the cheese they made this with come from rabbits?" I really hate to waste food, but I wouldn't feed this stuff to my worst enemy.

It did come with a free fridge magnet, which I keep in place to remind me that "natural" doesn't neccesarily mean good.

Stay away from this stuff, and keep your children away from it.

That is all.

Wil

As a father of an 8 year old girl, I thank the author for helping me better informed about the choices I have as a consumer of food. Before this article, we did not buy Annie's Mac & Cheese because we suspected that it was little different from what Kraft offers.

What might help is a follow-up article on the other products, especially those found in the freezer section, from Annie's. How do they stack up?

Am I the only parent who has tried to make homeade Mac & Cheese - only to have the kid complain that she wants "REAL" Macaroni & Cheese?

What's up with that powdered cheese anyway? I think the writer is correct - must be some addictive substance.

I surrendered and now we buy the Publix brand. At least it's kosher.

people, it's mac and cheese in a box. what do you expect?

it's fast, i think it tastes pretty swell, and you need nothing else in the house to prepare it other than water. no 1/4 cup milk, no stick of butter. just water.

life is hectic, sometimes we need a five minute meal that we dont have to stand over while it's cooking. and butter? I haven't had butter in my house in i don't remember how long.

take it for what it is... and keep some in the cupboard for when there's a blizzard. life doesn't have to be this complicated.

That 'white sauce' recipe lacks the cheese in the ingredient list. Flour sauce, not so good.

White sauce doesn't have cheese in it. White sauce, or bechamel, is a roux (equal amounts of flour and butter, cooked) and milk. That's all. It is the base for any cream sauces: you add ingredients to change the flavor and/or consistency (like cheese, to make a Mornay sauce).

Anyway, I love Annies mac & cheese, especially the whole wheat noodle kind. Of course it's not "good for you" -- it's freaking mac & cheese in a box! One serving is 300 calories, and there are *four* servings in a box! Anyone who thought that it was "healthy" food is a clown; the distinguishing mark is that its mercifully free of most chemicals and bizarre ingredients that you find in, say, Kraft (which I also love by the way)

Other readers have made all of the important points about Ms. Marx de Salcedo's article: its overblown tone and penchant for stating the obvious. I would however like to take issue with one of her factual arguments:

But from a nutritional perspective, that's the only time Annie's lands a punch. The rest of the match is a draw. Annie's has the same number of calories (Annie's 270, Kraft 260), the same amount of sodium (Annie's 550 mg, Kraft 580 mg), protein (Annie's 10 g, Kraft 9 g) and fiber (Annie's 1 g, Kraft 2 g), and a bit more fat (Annie's 4.6 g, Kraft 2.5 g) and saturated fat (Annie's 2.5 g, Kraft 1 g).

Here the author is comparing the in-box contents of Annie's and Kraft's mac and cheese. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the content of their boxes does not differ very much by serving. Yet many of the calories, and most of the fat, in mac and cheese comes not from the box but from the ingredients added while preparing the sauce. I'm talking about butter.

It is true that a serving of Annie's mac and cheese has 270 calories in box, compared to Kraft's 260. But a serving of prepared Annie's has 280 calories, compared to Kraft's 380. Similarly, The fat in Annie's serving goes from 7 percent of the RDA in box to 8 percent prepared; Kraft soars from 4 percent of RDA to 23 percent.

The reason is simple. I have before me a family-size box of Annie's "certified organic" shells & white cheddar, and a smaller box of Kraft mac & cheese. The Annie's box directs you to add from zero to two tablespoons of butter to 12 ounces of pasta; the Kraft box directs you to add four tablespoons of butter to 7 ounces of pasta. That's almost three and a half times as much butter per serving.

You could of course make Kraft with as little butter as Annie's recommends, or vice versa. But Ms. Marx de Salcedo, by focusing on the in-box contents of the two products, is vastly understating the difference in the content of the final dishes in order to bolster her already flimsy premise.

I think it's great that the difference in preparation was laid out so clearly that it's obvious we're being sold a false sense of convenience. However, thinking about it from the convenience angle adds a couple more steps to the recipe:

Homemade

1. Boil water

1.5 Measure pasta

2. Add pasta

3. Cook pasta

4. Grate cheese

4.5 Measure amount of cheese (maybe this is 3.5?)

5. Drain pasta

6. Add pat of butter and stir

7. Sprinkle with grated cheese

8. Serve

So there are actually three steps that you have to do with homemade that you don't have to do with Annie's, two of which include simple math. (Yes, I'm skipping the steps for measuring water, milk, the pat of butter, etc. because they're the same in both situations.)

I'm certainly not sticking up for Annie's; I'm just trying to understand what makes Annie's attractive. And I find it fascinating that the idea that Annie's saves you time (i.e.: is more convenient) doesn't actually hold water when you actually stop and think about it.

More to the point, I wonder what this kind of marketing mojo could achieve were it turned from the dark side (so to speak) and applied to important issues like the climate crisis...issues which form the subtext behind a lot of these kinds of purchases.