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Sunday, April 10, 2011

Perennial Greens

Continued from Yesterday

Getting the Greens

While matcha may be enjoyed for its taste as well as its health benefits, many consumers don’t want to taste green foods; perhaps if they did, they’d eat more spinach. “Dietary supplements seem to be the most popular delivery form for green ingredients—this may be due to the bitter, sometimes less appetizing, flavor of greens,” Dorsey-Kockler said.

Udell agreed supplements are popular among consumers. “Since green foods are not likely to be included in the daily diet, many find the convenience of a dietary supplement unbeatable,” he said.

For those taste-free supplements, manufacturers will want to choose ingredients that are coated rather than the uncoated form, according to Moerck. “The coated form is designed for consumers who object to the taste of spirulina and will draw a number of mainstream consumers into the market for this exciting ingredient.” He added powder blends are useful for drinks and liquids.

Powdered beverage mixes are the most requested among RFI’s customers, according to Wuagneux, partly due to their convenience.

Innovation is occurring mostly in the food and beverage markets, as noted by Dorsey-Kockler who said “These companies are continually looking for new ways to differentiate themselves and many are now considering non-traditional GRAS (generally recognized as safe) botanical ingredients. Innovations will include the addition of vegetable powders to foods (spinach potato chips), or green extracts to beverages (guarana-based energy drinks).”

Levine added while tablets and powders are still the most popular, some food bars and smoothies have successfully incorporated greens. “Some companies offer their green products in newly designed single serve packages, and we've seen a seltzer-like large tablet in a tube at a recent show,” he said. “The new forms offer a new path for the uninitiated to be introduced to the benefits of greens, so it's all good for the category.”

But even the most convenient, innovative delivery won’t keep consumers’ interest if the products don’t work. A major hurdle in green-food bioavailability is low digestibility. To address this issue, RFI ferments its ingredients before they are formulated into capsules, tablets or drink mixes. “Fermentation breaks down the nutrients in foods by the action of beneficial microorganisms like bacteria and yeast (microflora),” Wuagneux said. “The end results are products that are easier to digest, have more nutrients and are preserved longer.” He added, “Fermented foods introduce helpful probiotics into our gastrointestinal (GI) tract such as lactic acid bacteria. The health benefits of lactic acid bacteria include improved nutritional value of food, control of intestinal infections, improved digestion of lactose, control of some types of cancer, and control of serum cholesterol levels. These benefits may result from growth and action of the bacteria during the manufacture of cultured foods or from growth and action of certain species of the lactic acid bacteria in the intestinal tract following ingestion of foods containing them.”

Udell said Optipure Chlorella has a semi-permeable, thin cell wall that allows unaltered plant nutrients to be bioavailable. “Most chlorella requires the cell wall to be broken down before it is digestible by humans, so that the nutrients can be absorbed. However, many important vitamins are oxidized when the cell wall is broken.”

Plasse noted Solazyme also ferments its chlorella ingredients. Sun Chlorella uses DYNO®-Mill, a patented process that provides pulverization of chlorella’s tough, indigestible cell wall, allowing for maximum absorption and digestion, according to Lynn.

Continued Tomorrow

http://www.naturalproductsinsider.com/articles/2010/11/perennial-greens.aspx

http://www.depsyl.com/

http://back2basicnutrition.com/

http://bionutritionalresearch.olhblogspace.com/

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