by Janet on February 23, 2009
There’s a powerful movement sweeping the country (actually the world!) and if you’re not careful, you might fall victim to the allure of the super juice. If you’re not drawn in by the purported curative powers – cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, immunity, depression, drug addiction – then you might be tempted by the potential to make some extra cash.
These so-called super juices, including MonaVie, Vemma and XanGo which contain acai, goji, mangosteen and other exotic fruits, are at the center of multilevel marketing or “pyramid” schemes that rely on aggressive sales pitches by the converted. Trouble is, the enthusiastic, well-intentioned distributors who sell these “liquid antioxidants” out of their homes or on the internet have been drinking the proverbial Kool-aid. These expensive juices – $40 to $80 per bottle — do not live up to the hype. Studies have shown that eating an apple will give you more antioxidants. An independent investigation by the Associated Press found XanGo’s antioxidant strength is no better than other fruit juices that are readily available in supermarkets for a fraction of the cost.
An analysis by Men’s Journal found that MonaVie tested extremely low in phytonutrients (anthocyanins and phenolics). In fact, it contained even fewer of these beneficial compounds compared to apple juice, which also tested poorly. Grape juice had five times more vitamin C.
Word of mouth is a powerful marketing tool, but testimonials are not reliable evidence. I always think it’s a red flag to take nutrition advice from someone without any credentials beyond their status in a marketing company (along with a big financial interest in the advice). The National Council Against Health Fraud and Dr. Stephen Barrett of Quackwatch have issued several warnings related to multilevel marketing of health products. Even some former distributors of MonaVie feel burned by the experience and are warning others in the blog Purple Horror.
An Australia consumer watch-dog group called Choice investigated the claims made by nine popular super juices and found that the antioxidant content was not as high as “their marketing hype had led us to expect.” In many cases, eating an apple would provide you with more.
“You get a novelty fruit, call it a super fruit, throw in a secret Himalayan mountain or Chinese valley with mist on it, or a Pacific island with traditional healers who live to 150, and it’s a very potent brew. Then if it costs a lot, people assume it must be rare and very good for you,” said Choices spokesman Christopher Zinn.
One of the earliest super juices was Juice Plus, and it has had several legal challenges and critics, including Dr. Stephen Barrett of Quackwatch.
Now more than ever – when budgets are stretched – we do not need the distraction of super juices, which can set you back more than $100 a week if you follow the twice daily regimen. Besides the high price, you’ll be adding a lot of extra calories for nutrients that you’d be better off getting by eating a VARIETY of fruits and vegetables every day. Besides, dietary guidelines suggest “go easy on fruit juices,” which should be limited to just 1 cup a day. As far as the vitamins and minerals in these super juices, you can simply take a much cheaper multivitamin and save the rest of your money for groceries.
Tagged as:
Beverages,
diet fads,
hype,
MonaVie,
superjuices,
Vemma,
XanGo
by Janet on February 20, 2009
The economy is starting to cut into the growth of the green movement, according to new consumer research from Mintel. The number of Americans who say they almost always or regularly buy green products remains unchanged since last year, at 36%. This comes after tripling the previous year — from 12% in 2007 to 36% in 2008.
Marcia Mogelonsky, PhD, senior research analyst at Mintel, explains the shift in green shopping behavior…
“People’s priorities have changed because of economic hardship. A substantial number of shoppers are now struggling just to provide the basics for their families, so green living is no longer top of mind for many Americans.”
Cost is the biggest barrier. Mintel’s survey found the majority of adults are willing to pay only a little extra for green products. More than half of respondents (54%) say they would buy more green products but the products are too expensive.
“Today’s shopper is looking for value,” said Mogelonsky. “Value doesn’t mean just low prices, but cost is definitely a factor. True value includes health and safety benefits, quality, convenience, appeal and trust, all at a reasonable price. Companies who provide those benefits, as well as appease shoppers’ green sensibilities, will enjoy success despite the recession.”
Even though the trend is slowing, Mintel predicts a 19% growth for green products overall through 2013. Markets including green personal care and environmentally friendly household cleaners are expected to perform especially well. Organic food, the most mature segment, will experience slowing but steady growth over the next five years, despite lower prices from private label organics and competition from natural and local foods.
Despite the green slow-down, the number of green labels continues to grow. Check out the range of eco-labels that are now being used on foods and beverages today.
Tagged as:
green,
Mintel,
nutrition trends,
organic
by Janet on February 19, 2009
One of the fruits that I grew to love this summer in Lebanon was the prickly pear — known as cactus fruit or subbair. These seed-studded fruits grow wild on my father-in-law’s property around his house. And I would love to eat these succulent fruits for breakfast. I was amazed at the markets near his house where the cactus fruit would be stacked high on display…and the peeling of this thorny, desert fruit was turned into an art form.
Prickly pear cactus has a long history in Mexico and Rick Bayless writes lovingly about the fruit (tunas) in his cookbook Mexican Kitchen, which features Crimson Prickly Pear Sauce.
Now it seems this ancient fruit Opuntia ficus indica (eaten for 9,000 years) may be the next big thing. One of the trendiest drinks in the Southwest is the Prickly Pear Margarita and the flavor is showing up in a range of new-age beverages, 
including energy drinks, juices, flavored teas (including Snapple) and functional beverages. Prickly pear is gaining popularity in the alternative medicine world and dietary supplements of the fruit in powder or pill are now stocked in health food stores and marketed online.
One prickly pear-flavored drink called Urban Detox claims the beverage can help with a hangover. Curiously, there does seem to be a study from Tulane that attempts to support this claim, however, the research was conducted with an extract from prickly pear, not with this drink. The company claims benefits from the anti-inflammatory properties of the fruit. An animal study from the University of Arizona found that the pectin isolated from the fruit helped bring down LDL cholesterol levels.
One company is beginning to market a line of prickly pear extracts for use in foods and beverages to “support healthy glucose levels.” Some preliminary research suggests that fiber-rich prickly pear fruit may help reduce blood sugar levels, but it’s too early to draw major conclusions.
Plus, you won’t be helping your blood sugar all that much if you indulge in the most popular forms of prickly pear — candy, jellies, syrups and sweet beverages. You’re better off with the whole fruit — which is widely available in the Southwest, but increasingly found in supermarkets and farmer’s markets throughout the country.
It’s overkill to put prickly pear too high on a health pedestal, but this is a nutritious fruit — high in vitamin C, fiber and phytonutrients known as flavonoids. So if you can find prickly pears near you, check them out. They have a devoted following, including Carolyn Niethammer who has assembled a collection of recipes in the Prickly Pear Cookbook. But if you’re new to prickly pear, you may find the pebble-like seeds in the fruit a little hard to get used to — but stick with the fruit instead of the pills or “functional” drinks. Although, the margarita sounds like it’s worth a try.
Tagged as:
fruits,
Lebanon,
nutrition research,
nutrition trends,
prickly pear
by Janet on February 19, 2009
No doubt, kids need to eat more fruits and vegetables. All too often french fries dominate the plate and juice is the only form of fruit many children consume. So it’s great to see companies develop innovative new products with kid appeal.
However, must we have squirtable fruit?
Smashies is a new line of squeezy applesauce for kids that I happened to stumble upon when grocery shopping last week. I give the company credit for not adding sugar to the fruit, but I’m struggling with the squirt-in-your-mouth approach. Don’t think that’s how I want to encourage my kids to eat. Sure, it’s great the product is portable and ideal for lunch boxes or on-the-go snacks…but remember apples?
The puree in the pouch contains “organic apple flavor” (what is that?) and 0 grams of fiber — a significant disadvantage over real apples. I’d much rather encourage the whole fruit, or look at other options on occasion to add variety and interest.
Rather than sucking on pulverized apples, I like the idea of freeze-dried apples better (all natural, no added ingredients) and mini-bags of sliced apples. But, of course, real apples are the best of all.
What do you think?
Tagged as:
applesauce,
Children's Nutrition,
fruits,
new food products,
Smashies
by Janet on February 18, 2009
During these tough economic times, people are returning to the kitchen. That’s good news. And most people (96%) believe that eating at home is healthier than eating out, according to the Food Marketing Institute’s Shopping for Health report.
But some recent headlines would have you believe that cooking at home could be hazardous to your waistline. A Cornell University study published as a letter this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine suggests the popular cookbooks we rely on at home might be making us fat. The researchers examined how classic recipes have changed during the past 70 years, primarily focusing on the iconic Joy of Cooking. They found a nearly 40 percent increase in calories per serving for nearly every recipe reviewed, about an extra 77 calories. This was primarily due to changes in serving sizes and ingredients (extra meat instead of vegetables, more sauces, butter or sugar). Plus, families have gotten smaller, so a dish that once was eaten by 8 people is now consumed by 4.
But registered dietitian and chef Maggie Green, who served as a lead editor on the updated 2006 Joy of Cooking, is crying foul. She challenges how this study was done — only analyzing 18 recipes out of thousands. She doesn’t believe this small sampling represents the full scope of the book. Additionally, the newer edition provides more nutrition information for the reader and features more fresh ingredients over processed foods.
“I still defy anyone to cook and eat sensibly at home and become obese,” Green told me in an email. “I firmly believe home-cooking and sharing a meal with those you love would go a long way in making this world a healthier place.”
So bottom line, the problem of portion distortion is not limited to restaurant meals. Keeping an eye on portion size is important at home too. But does the YIELD identified in a recipe really determine how much you eat? Not sure folks are really looking at how many servings a recipe makes and then eat accordingly. What may help is switching to a smaller plate. The growing size of our dinner plates makes reasonable portions look puny. Studies show that we tend to eat more as our plates get larger.
With more meals eaten at home, maybe we need to help arm today’s value-conscious home cook with contemporary recipes that help maximize nutrition on a budget. But it all comes down to how much you eat, no matter what recipe you’re using.
Tagged as:
calories,
cookbooks,
Joy of Cooking,
nutrition research,
portion control,
Recipes
by Janet on February 10, 2009
I must admit I’m fascinated by the food fight between the “deceptive” and “sneaky” cookbook authors. And I’m eagerly awaiting the outcome of the lawsuit Missy Chase Lapine filed against Jessica Seinfeld, author of Deceptively Delicious. Lapine alleges that Seinfeld stole ideas from her book The Sneaky Chef, which was published six months earlier.
This controversy stirs up so many intriguing issues — originality of recipes, ethics of publishers and agents and the power of celebrity. While the authors argue over potential “vegetable plagiarism,” I’m more concerned about the actual content of these best-selling books. Is the advice being dispensed really good for kids?
Now, it appears the “hide and seek” approach is catching on with the food industry. The trend tracker Mintel says the hidden nutrition strategy is gaining ground with manufacturers and predicts multiple new products for children with vegetables and fruits hidden inside.
Yes, children’s diets do need improving. And eating more fruits and vegetables is a good place to start. But, to me, the sneaky approach sends several wrong messages.
Tricks are for kids?
As a registered dietitian and mother of veggie-loving twins, the concept of camouflaging vegetables just hit me wrong. Does deception really belong at the dinner table?
For starters, disguising vegetables reinforces the notion that these foods are so bad they must be hidden. Early childhood is a critical time of palate development and children need to be exposed to vegetables or they’ll never learn to eat them. Relying on these deceptive recipes may encourage you to throw in the kitchen towel and stop offering “real” vegetables to kids.
Most troubling, though, is the actual nutritional quality of the recipes. Janice Bissex and Liz Weiss, the Meal Makeover Moms, tested some of the recipes in Deceptively Delicious to see if they worked and, more importantly, to see how nutritious they really were. Once they got cooking they found that several of the recipes provided a measly amount of vegetables – some only about 1 tablespoon per serving. They thought the recipes were so focused on sneaking in small amounts of vegetables that they often missed the boat on overall good nutrition.
For example, a chocolate pudding recipe included pureed avocado but surprisingly no milk, so it contained no bone-building calcium. It was also high in sugar (10 teaspoons per 1/2-cup serving) and contained, oddly, uncooked cornstarch that they said gave it a gritty texture. Many recipes in the two books are overly time-consuming and embrace the narrow concept of “kid food,” such as chicken nuggets doused in a broccoli puree before being breaded and fried. The two dietitians thought many of the dishes didn’t even taste good – which is quite ironic since the recipes are attempting to mask the taste of vegetables, yet the final product wasn’t appealing.
I totally agree with the concept of boosting the nutrient density of the foods kids eat (such as adding grated carrots to meat balls or finely diced bell peppers to pasta sauce), but I struggle with this deceptive approach.
Jessica Seinfeld has readily admitted in media interviews that she resorted to these stealth tactics with her children because she grew tired of “bribing them, begging them, whining at them” to eat their vegetables. But studies show that pressure like this doesn’t work. When you bribe or force children to eat certain foods, they like those foods less.
So what can we learn from this cookbook controversy? For me, I’m even more convinced that there are better ways to get kids to eat their veggies.
We should focus on making vegetables taste good, not apologizing for them. If we do, children will learn to eat vegetables the same way they learn to eat other foods. Kids need time and multiple opportunities to eat vegetables. Plus, they need to see parents enjoy them too! Getting kids involved in selecting and preparing vegetables can make them more appealing. Trips to farmers markets and even growing your own vegetables also can help.
We need to remember that we’re helping to establish food preferences that can last a lifetime so it’s worth the effort. There are no quick fixes.
Tagged as:
Children's Nutrition,
cookbooks,
Deceptively Delicious,
Jessica Seinfeld,
Missy Chase Lapine,
Recipes,
Sneaky Chef,
vegetables
by Janet on February 9, 2009
I’m crazy about the humble chickpea.
This pallid orb, AKA garbanzo bean, was once relegated to a lonely container nestled in ice on a salad bar. But no more.
Now, hummus is the new salsa. And the chickpea is the new superfood.
Several recent studies suggest this pale legume deserves the limelight. Packed with fiber, protein, folate and hard-working phytonutrients, chickpeas have a lot to brag about.
Australian researchers found that a chickpea-heavy diet helped bring down blood cholesterol levels, including LDL or “bad” cholesterol. Even more recently, the same group of Aussies found that chickpeas helped with glycemic control and insulin resistance — which may be valuable in the prevention and management of diabetes. Other studies suggest chickpeas can tame your appetite (boost satiety) and could even help trim your waistline — OK, that study was with rats, but still!
Beans are a lowfat alternative to meat, so making a substitution could be beneficial. After all, beans are officially part of the “meat and beans” group in the food pyramid. And they also count as a vegetable. In fact, beans are the only food that can do double duty. They belong to both food groups. Dietary guidelines recommend 3 cups of beans per week — but most people need to triple the amount of beans they eat to achieve this level. Certainly, hummus is a good place to start.
Here’s the most perfect bowl of hummus we enjoyed this summer in Lebanon. Even though it’s easier than ever to find prepared hummus in most supermarkets today, there’s nothing like making it yourself.
Hummus Recipe
4 cloves garlic, peeled and halved
2 16-oz. cans of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2/3 cup tahini, well stirred
Juice of 2 lemons
1/4 cup olive oil
water (as needed)
1 teaspoon salt
Optional garnish: whole chickpeas, toasted pine nuts, chopped parsley, paprika, cumin or sumac
Combine all of the ingredients except the water and garnish in a food processor and process until smooth. Add water to thin hummus to the desired consistency (about 1/2 cup). Transfer to a bowl and drizzle with additional olive oil to keep the hummus from crusting, and add garnish. Refrigerate until ready to use. Serve with pita chips.
My Lebanese mother-in-law will boil the canned chickpeas first to soften and get rid of the thin skin on the bean (to make for a really creamy hummus), but I tend to skip this step. You also can rub the chickpeas with your fingers until the skins come off. My husband often prefers a version without tahini that’s called balila hummus (although he refers to it as hummus “unplugged”).
Even though we like the plain garlic/lemony version best, we will often experiment by adding different ingredients including canned chipotle in sauce, roasted red peppers, chopped jalapeno, olives, cilantro or pomegranate molasses. Check out this hummus recipe from Joylicious that’s simply garnished with paprika and whole chickpeas.
Tagged as:
beans,
chickpeas,
garbanzo beans,
hummus,
Lebanon,
legumes,
nutrition research,
Recipes
by Janet on February 9, 2009
Kosher has hit it big. No other claim was used more frequently last year on new foods and beverages, according to Mintel’s Global New Products Database.
“Kosher” was at the top of the list of all new product launches — beating out “all natural” and “no additives or preservatives.” 
Yet food safety was the primary driver, not religion. Research conducted by Mintel indicates that people who purchased kosher products thought they were produced under stricter supervision than what is provided by government inspection. Many thought the kosher symbol guarantees that the food is free of contaminants or disease. (particularly meats).
More than half of the consumers who purchased kosher foods did so because they considered them to be safer than products not certified as kosher.
With foodborne illness outbreaks constantly in the news, it’s no surprise that people are nervous about the safety of the food supply. Yet, this food safety halo over kosher foods may be more perception vs. reality.
Mintel valued the market for kosher-certified foods at $12.5 billion. According to the firm’s database, 4,477 new kosher-certified processed products were launched in the U.S. in 2007, compared to 1,491 in 2205 and 399 in 2003.
Tagged as:
food quality,
Food Safety,
kosher,
labeling,
natural,
nutrition myths,
nutrition trends
by Janet on February 8, 2009
Here’s a new product that had me intrigued. I found it when walking the exhibit floor recently at the American Dietetic Association’s Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo.
I wrote about several new products on display at the Expo for my column in the Chicago Tribune. But this one didn’t make the cut. Primarily because it’s not available yet in the Windy City. For now you can only find Flavor Magic online.
This innovative product is intended to help you easily reduce portions and boost flavor of meat, fish or poultry. You simply place your protein choice on top of a pre-cut seasoning sheet and trim the meat to match the recommended 4-ounce serving. The goal is to manage portions before you sit down to eat.
Let it marinate for 30 minutes, remove the portion-control “transfer sheet” and then grill, bake or broil. The dry marinade contains no MSG or preservatives, and comes in several flavors including Zesty Cajun Creole, Riviera Tomato & Basil and Dijon Honey Mustard. Available at PortionControl.net, along with some valuable information on fighting “portion distortion.”
Tagged as:
Flavor Magic,
new food products,
portion control,
Recipes,
spices
