• Quick Bites for the Week Ending 2010-08-27: Quinoa For Breakfast: As we’ve discussed before, quinoa has excellent … http://bit.ly/a9NKu4 #

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• Quinoa For Breakfast: As we’ve discussed before, quinoa has excellent nutritional value: its protein content is ve… http://bit.ly/b9D8JG #
• Quick Bites for the Week Ending 2010-08-20: Good backgrounder on Fair Trade. No invisible hand here… http://bit.ly... http://bit.ly/9D3fGL #

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• Good backgrounder on Fair Trade. No invisible hand here… http://bit.ly/ds2O5a #
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  GroceryIQ: manage groce… http://bit.ly/aNokoW #

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• A healthier cup of joe: http://bit.ly/bDhdU2 #
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• Mexico – 140 Characters at a Time:
  Rick Bayless, the famous chef at the Mexican restaurant Frontera Grill in Chic… http://bit.ly/dk5ZJr #
• RT @presentationzen: Ukulele cover of Katy Perry's Teenage Dream by @sebinomics in Switzerland. Cool! http://post.ly/qL4x #
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• Quick Bites for the Week Ending 2010-07-30: Are you a wine drinker, a wine snob, or a wine geek? http://bit.ly/csK... http://bit.ly/dA9Wji #

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Coconut water seems to be the big craze with celebrities these days, and it’s not without merit. It’s a natural isotonic beverage with a comparable level of electrolytes as our blood. In fact, during World War II, coconut water was administered intravenously as a replacement for dextrose on the battlefield. Think of it as nature’s Gatorade, but better: it’s got 2 to 3 times as much potassium as sports drinks while having less than half the amount of sodium and a fraction of the sugar (and these sugars are completely natural no less!).

According to ABC’s Good Morning America:

It’s low in calories, fat-free, natural and serves a purpose: hydration. Some consumers are likely to choose it over sugar-laden sports drinks, so it’s no wonder big name beverage companies are vying for their piece of the coconut pie.

Right now, coconut water represents a perhaps $50 million niche industry. Given the maturity of the sports beverage market and recent controversy surrounding energy drinks, could coconut water be the next big thing? Here’s the segment from GMA:

Cracking the Coconut Water Craze

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• Quick Bites for the Week Ending 2010-07-23: Interview with Dr. Richard Feinman, expert in low carb diets, an often… http://bit.ly/cfhymO #

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How can a nation be great if it’s bread tastes like Kleenex? – Julia Child

We had a bit of a discussion going with JP over at Healthy Fellow regarding the challenges of incorporating natural, healthy alternative ingredients into mainstream food products. One challenge is economic as some of these more innovative ingredients come at a price. For example, outside of colour, coconut sugar could be used in most places that refined sugar is used today, however it costs more.

JP suggested that consumer demand and taste were the main factors in adoption of healthier ingredients, rather than cost, and we tend to agree. Clearly there is a growing awareness of food quality and functionality with modern consumers and this is leading to a growing demand for healthier ingredients in the foods we eat. Basic economics would tell us that growing demand will also drive supply and lead to lower costs. So it really comes down to taste. As JP pointed out:

For instance, I can buy a large bag of “bakers stevia” such as Stevia in Raw for about the same amount as a comparably-sized Splenda package. On the other hand, I couldn’t get my wife to accept the taste of stevia – regardless of the price. Unfortunately, she’s not the only one that feels this way…The regulatory status of stevia is what it is today because there was sufficient demand for it. But even so, the market is somewhat limited because of tepid consumer acceptance of the current products on the market.

The overall sentiment is that if manufacturers can somehow produce products based on natural, healthy ingredients that taste as good as the current mainstream products, they’ll be adopted by consumers. For food manufacturers, achieving this ideal combination of health and taste may require changes to processes and formulation. According the the recent article Building Better Desserts at FoodProcessing.com:

The dessert items receiving the brunt of healthy treatments certainly would be baked goods, such as cakes and cookies…the incorporation of ingredients such as whole grains can readily make them healthier…But these ingredients do change the baking aspects of products — such as the mixing — so processes and formulas need to be adjusted.

Besides processes and formulation, the taste challenge can also be addressed by innovation with the basic constituents themselves, for example, various suppliers of food ingredients are developing healthier fats and oils as well as unique whole grains, fibers and beta glucans. In fact, we saw a new version of stevia at the IFT Food Expo in Chicago just last week that does not need any masking agents (i.e. flavours) for its lingering sweetness.

Lastly, the push for healthier retail food products is not just driven by consumer demand but by regulation, which provides yet another challenge for food manufacturers when pursuing consumer acceptance. Afterall, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink it. It all comes down to taste.

I suppose we all want to look good. Thick, healthy, beautiful hair is a big part of having an attractive appearance. This is probably one reason why hair care products have the highest sales volume of all non-food items in the United States. It’s estimated that the hair care market in the United States is worth over $6 billion!

Now I’m not so sure chia is the natural Rogaine, however, equestrians have been using chia seeds for some time to naturally provide horses with a healthier skin and coat, and to promote strong hoof growth. So does it have the same effect with human hair? According to a recent article by Alexsis Grovenor:

If you want to ensure you always have healthy hair you should follow a routine. In much the same way you have a skin care regime you should have a hair care regime. In order to have lovely hair you need to use a hair loss product or hair growth product to treat the hair. However, you should go one step further by taking a daily supplement. Chia seeds contain all the goodness your body needs to produce healthy hair.

We’re going to leave this one alone! However, as we’ve noted before, chia is pretty amazing. It’s gaining a lot of attention as a nutritional powerhouse. We think it’s a great candidate for use in food applications, providing a boost in nutritional content. And who knows, maybe it’ll help with that bald spot!

Chia Seeds for Natural Hair Growth

photo credit: andydr

• Interview with Dr. Richard Feinman, expert in low carb diets, an often controversial topic http://bit.ly/cRL8El #
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• Quick Bites for the Week Ending 2010-07-16: Hey! You got alcohol in my tea! You got tea in my alcohol! http://yho... http://bit.ly/bauqSm #

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