Wellness Foods - October 2007 - (Page 3)

Well Noted october 2007 • Volume 9, Number 5 a special supplement to Food Processing Visit our site at www.wellnessfoodsonline.com Putman Media, Inc. 555 W. Pierce Road, Ste. 301, Itasca, IL 60143 Phone: (630) 467-1300 • Fax: (630) 467-1179 Diluting the Messages ith organic now such a byword (or is it “buy word?”), does the term itself – or even the word “healthy” – lose meaning when applied to nearly every product? I’m not backtracking from my editorial stance last year (“Organic By Any Other Name,” October, 2006 ), where I expressed discomfort over the inclusion of “fair-trade,” “sustainably farmed” etc. under the organic umbrella. I still believe those certifications are best left to stand alone. The danger is in blurring lines between what’s better for you and what’s merely marketed as such. Folks take everything with a grain of salt these days (except the nonsciencebased slams of salt, but that’s another editorial). Consumers are smarter than they were in the 1950s, when conformity and complacency were virtues. Applying an organic or healthoriented tag to a product that neither merits the label nor for which the trendy ingredients truly affect the end result may not confuse consumers now so much as anger them. There’s no denying the short-term market value for such things as organic salt or phytoplankton-laced martinis (I’m not making that one up). The former appeals to the obsessively organic, the latter to…well, I’m not sure. Then there’s the occasion when the mad rush to get in on the organic act causes a company to cut corners. A major grocery retailer gets busted for selling as organic nonorganic produce. A formerly trend-setting organic dairy company, desperate to keep up with high demand, streamlines its practices to the point of beggaring the definition. Short-term value has a way of backfiring. That’s why it’s called “short term.” Editor, David Feder, R.D. dfeder@putman.net News & trends Editor, Diane Toops dtoops@putman.net Field Editors, Mark Anthony, Leslie Krasny, Kantha Shelke Managing Editor, digital Media, Jill Russell jrussell@putman.net Editorial advisory Board Mark Anthony, Ph.D., Robert Brown, Ph.D., MPH, Robert Earl, MPH, R.D., Mark Messina, Ph.D., Dalip Nayyar, Ph.D., David Schmidt, Kantha Shelke, Ph. D., and Connie M. Weaver, Ph.D., R.D. group art director, Stephen C. Herner sherner@putman.net art director, Jennifer Dakas jdakas@putman.net production Manager, Christina Kayalik ckayalik@putman.net group publisher, Kay Ross-Baker kross-baker@putman.net senior account Manager, Tony Fasano tfasano@putman.net regional sales Manager, Tom Schoen tschoen@putman.net regional sales Manager, Ann Franzen afranzen@putman.net digital sales specialist, Kim Eklof keklof@putman.net reprints Marketing Manager, Claudia Stachowiak Foster Reprints 4295 Ohio Street, Michigan City, IN 46360 (866) 879-9144 ext.121, fax (219) 561-2019 claudia@fostereprints.com president and cEo Vice president Vp of content Vp circulation circulation Manager a d M i N i s t r at i V E s ta F F rEpriNts puBlisHiNg dEsigN & productioN Editorial W John M. Cappelletti Julie Cappelletti-Lange Keith Larson Jerry Clark Patricia Donatiu s u B s c r i p t i o N s / c u s t o M E r s E rV i c E : (888) 644-1803 Wellness Foods (ISSN 1545-6366) [a supplement to Food processing (ISSN 0015-6523)] is published bi-monthly (6 times per year) by Putman Media, Inc. (also publishers of Chemical Processing, Control, Control Design, Industrial Networking, Pharmaceutical Manufacturing, Plant Services and The Journal), 555 W. Pierce Road, Suite 301, Itasca, IL 60143 (Phone: 630-467-1300 Fax: 630467-1179). Periodicals Postage Paid at Itasca, IL, and at additional mailing offices. Canada Post International Publications Mail Product Sales Agreement No. 40028661. Canadian Mail Distributor information: Frontier/BWI, PO Box 1051, Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada, L2A 5N8. Printed in the U.S.A. POSTMASTER: Send change of address notices to Food Processing, P.O. Box 3436, Northbrook, IL 60065-3436. FAX: (847) 291-4816. The health marketing of some products has been awful, either using overblown science or dumbing things down to an insult. Putting healthful plant sterols in beer is just plain missing the point – of sterols and of beer. When cholesterol became the food fear several decades ago, everything suddenly received a “no cholesterol!” starburst on its packaging. Although cholesterol only comes from animalderived products (including dairy and eggs), cereals, beverages and candy bars were cashing in on the “cholesterol-free” fad. (Sadly, that bit of applied ignorance is creeping back.) Remember the “Jellybean Rule?” Even after the government declared you could label something as cholesterol-free only if it was a formulation that could originally have contained cholesterol, there was little or no policing of the unscrupulous marketing juggernaut. When today’s smarter, better-informed consumers tell processors they want to know what’s in their food and where it came from, it’s because they want assurance the ingredients don’t include melamine or E. coli. It’s not because they are blindly following a fad. The same way health labeling must adhere to strict definitions, the definition of organic is – and should be – based on logical, readily accountable parameters. But that does not mean everything that fits those same parameters should receive an organic or healthful label. Frozen chicken fried steak with ham hock gravy may conform to the rules, but does it really matter if it does? David Feder, R.D., Editor Tel: 630/467-1300, ext. 317 E-mail: dfeder@putman.net Food Processing’s Wellness Foods™ www.wellnessfoodsonline.com October 2007 | http://www.wellnessfoodsonline.com http://www.wellnessfoodsonline.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Wellness Foods - October 2007

Wellness Foods - October 2007 Diluting the Messages Healthbites New Ingredient Profiles Power Up! Ingredients for Energy and Immunity Beverages for Beauty Potassium Rocks Get Smart with Omegas On the Shelf Marketing to Facts vs. Myths

Wellness Foods - October 2007

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