Is Kix Cereal Gluten Free or Not? Kix Cereal is Gluten Free!

Breakfast and cereal are two things we can’t separate cereal is already a staple breakfast food for most Americans and as a matter a fact, we like it a lot. But for those who need gluten free diet or parents who need to prepare gluten free diet for their kids, cereal for breakfast seems like not an option.

The most common main ingredient for breakfast cereal is wholegrain oat and that’s definitely not gluten free. Surprisingly, there are breakfast cereal products made with non-gluten ingredients thus can be considered as gluten free option for breakfast cereal. How about the popular breakfast cereal Kix? Is Kix Cereal gluten free? Let’s find out!

Kix Cereal and Gluten Free Ingredients

Kix Cereal is a brand of cereal products manufactured by General Mills. This is among the popular brands in the US market and no wonder many are wondering whether cereal products from this brand is gluten free or not.

While there’s no designated label or clear claim from the manufacturer, it doesn’t mean you must remove Kix Cereal from gluten free option.

The easiest way to know for sure is by checking its ingredients. Kix Cereal offers three variants:

• Classic or original Kix
• Honey Kix
• and Berry Berry Kix.

All variants used to have oats among the main ingredients but since 2009, General Mills removed oats from the ingredient lists of all Kix Cereal products.

What are the ingredients in Kix cereal?

According to the information provided on the packaging, the main ingredients of Kix Cereal (original) are including whole grain corn and corn meal with additional ingredients including sugar, brown sugar syrup, corn barn, baking soda, and Vitamin E. Honey Kix and Berry Berry Kix only has slightly different additional ingredients.

From that information we can clearly learn that Kix Cereal products no longer contain gluten ingredients. So, is Kix cereal gluten free? Ingredient wise, the answer is yes.

Why Kix Cereal Not Labeled as Gluten Free

However, theirs is still a concerning fact we need to look further. If Kix Cereal contain no gluten ingredients, why all Kix Cereal products are not specifically labelled as gluten free cereal products?

General Mills does have several cereal products specifically labelled as gluten free but not Kix Cereal. The manufacturer is committed to always declare any gluten ingredients added to its product, including derivative ingredients.

So, in case of Kix Cereal, the manufacturer guarantees that the products only contain ingredients as declared on packaging information. However, Kix Cereal isn’t labeled for two reasons:

• The first reason is production process of Kix Cereal doesn’t use a dedicated gluten free manufacturing facility. That means it shares the same production line, equipment, and machineries with other cereal products including those products using gluten ingredients. There’s risk of cross contamination from gluten residues throughout the production line. While the risk is minimum, General Mills couldn’t give assurance that all Kix Cereal products are 100% gluten free.
• The second reason is the probability that older batch products, that still use oat ingredients, are still circulating on the market. Until all older batch products are no longer available on the market, labeling Kix Cereal as gluten free is defiantly misleading.

So, is Kix Cereal gluten free? We presented all the facts. It is yours to decide.

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