The show floor is open!

I do enjoy a good trade show and the Natural Expo was one of them (the All Candy and Snack Expo is another).   The Expo East was smaller than ExpoWest but there were a number of interesting things to see and try.

For Expo East, the three top trends that I noticed in the food category were:

1. Gluten-free

There has been a phenomenal rise in gluten-free offerings in recent years.    It would be interesting to compare it with the actual rate of people being diagnosed with gluten-related conditions.   Are gluten-free products healthier?     Alternative, more complex grains to wheat certainly are!   Quinoa, amaranth (or kiwicha) are high in protein and have a wonderful, nutty taste when roasted.     Other flours such as rice, mesquite, oats, tapioca and even coconut flour are great options too.    However, these types of flours are often combined with gums such as xanthan and even pectin to achieve that chewy, moist texture characteristic of wheat breads.

2. Agave Sweeteners

Stevia was the popular topic last year.  However, it is still not officially approved in Canada as an ingredient and it has an unplesant cloying sweetness that lingers even when you don’t want it to.    Should it be considered natural when it has already been bleached and refined?

Best agave packaging with an Agave Cookbook author

Enter Agave,  a by-product of tequila processing.

The taste of agave is more pleasant than stevia and it is also now available in a powder form (Brand Aga-Fit).   Agave is available in many different colours  (clear, dark brown, amber, golden), which can be confusing.     A number of companies claim that blue agave is superior over other types.  But controversy looms in the high content of fructose in the syrup.

3. Fruits everywhere!

Similar to the IFT in Chicago – fruits in many different forms were everywhere!

In the juice category, coconut water was very popular.    I tried each one and there were major differences in flavour.    Coconut water ( at least the coconut water I grew up with)  need to come from young coconuts to get that fresh, clean tasting juice or water as they call it.    If it matures beyond 6 months, that is when the flesh starts to mature and the water develops an unpleasant taste.   The “Zico” and “Taste Nirvana Real Coconut water” brand were the least favourite of mine.    They tasted like juice coming from mature coconuts – mature enough to grate or they could be from concentrate.

Both O.N.E. and Vita Coco were true to the natural source.     I added Naked coconut water in the comparison even if it was not at the show – it also gets top marks from me.     These brands are all unsweetened and unflavoured.

The best combination that I’ve tried of the flavour varieties was the coconut-lychee combination.    This combination was very nostalgic for me.  We use to eat this at  my grandmother’s house for the local fiesta, when they ordered this huge steel vat of sherbet made of young coconut water with the coconut meat, sugar and lychee fruits.  It was a wonderful treat in such hot weather.

Dried fruits have come a long way from the typical syrup infused and sun or air-dried form such as the prune or the raisin.    The drying process has evolved to try to retain colour vibrancy, taste and vitamins.   There come in several forms, shapes, textures and sizes.     Freeze-dried fruits are crispy but to the point where the texture almost feels artificial.   The cost of freeze-dried fruits are also very high.    Swell-dried fruits or “Puffed fruits” combines the air dried fruit with changes in atmospheric pressure to “puff up” the dried fruit.  The effect is a very crispy fruit chip that retains a lot of the flavour and colour without the “freeze-dried” texture or cost.   YogaVive featured their apple chips at the show, their fruits are processed in China.    Please refer to the Ingredient Hotline, Inc. website for the ABCAR-DIC process.  The technology has been applied to several different types of fruits and vegetables with much success.

More exotic fruits from South America and Asia are expected to turn up in the coming shows.  There are still a number of fruits not yet commercialized but are packed with antioxidants and other nutrients.

Penta Water - Patented water??

Patented water?   Hmm, not too sure of that.     It tastes the same as bottled water, wonder if it has the same freezing point.   It was explained to me that their filtration process alters the size of the water molecules, thus making it easier to absorb into the body.     I am still preplexed how a filtration process, which is suppose to be a physical process – how it can possibly cause changes at the atomic level?!

Boston Clam Chowder with Oyster Crackers

A fitting end to a great day of walking the show floor – a hot bowl of authentic Boston clam chowder soup with a side of oyster crackers.

We’re starting to notice a developing trend away from refined sugar and towards natural sweeteners. There is a growing awareness that refined sugar has virtually no nutritional value, while excess consumption may have serious negative consequences to our health. Fortunately, food manufacturers (and consumers!) can leverage this growing trend and incorporate natural sweeteners in their applications as an alternative to refined sugar. An array of natural sweeteners are now available such as agave and yacon syrups, coconut sugars and other palm sugars. The appropriate sweetener probably depends on the specific application.

For example, here is how search volume has been trending for palm sugar, a natural sweetener, over the past few years:

Refined sugar comes almost exlcusively from sugar cane and sugar beets. These plants contain juices from which sugar crystals, syrups and molasses are made. It’s worth noting that raw sugar cane juice is actually fairly good for you and has a relatively low glycemic index. Refinement is the process of extracting the sucrose from these plant materials while removing unwanted materials from the raw sugar, such as plant fibers and soil.

Refinement consists of a repeated process of washing, boiling, centrifuging, filtering and drying. More Than Sugar describes the process:

After harvesting the sugar cane, machines are used to wash, cut, and press the juice out of the cane stalks. This liquid is then heated to boiling and treated with chemical solvents to remove impurities. Then it is moved to huge tanks and heated again to evaporate the water content. This leaves a thick syrup that is placed in a centrifuge machine to form the syrup into crystals…These crystals are then transported to a sugar refinery where they are heated to boiling again, treated with bleach and other chemicals and then filtered through bone char, which is a powder made from cow or pig bones. After filtering, the syrup is then centrifuged again to produce refined white sugar. Brown sugar is created by adding molasses before putting it in the centrifuge.

Table sugar is sucrose in its completely refined stage. “Pure” sugar refers to chemical purity, not to a nutritionally beneficial quality. In fact, pure sugar is virtually void of all nutritional elements such as vitamins, minerals, proteins or fibers.

It is felt that the consumption of excess sugar is linked to the improper functioning of the liver. Some simply call refined sugar dangerous. According to the Refined Sugar blog:

In addition, most people consume far more sugar than their bodies can possibly use for energy. When this happens, the liver converts the extra sugar into molecules called triglycerides and stores it as fat, or else produces cholesterol from the by-products of sugar and deposits it in veins and arteries. Sugar is thus a major factor in obesity and arteriosclerosis…It also negatively effects behavior. Refined sugar consumption has been linked to violent behavior, hypertension, and learning impediments.

If you are a food or nutraceutical manfacturer and you’d like to talk about the use of natural sweeteners in your applications, please contact us. We’d be happy to discuss any specific application you have in mind. Consumers can purchase natural sweeteners such as coconut sugar, yacon syrup and agave syrup from many online retailers, and a growing number of traditional food stores.

Subscribe and follow Ingredient Hotline. It’s an easy way to stay up to date on the latest in innovative, all natural food ingredients!

Photo Credit: Lauri Andler. Licensed under the GFDL.

The World Health Organization reports that there are over a billion overweight adults worldwide.  Factors such as reduced physical activity, poor selection of foods (those that are high in sugar and fats); bot have contributed to this condition.

The risks to health from obesity range from diabetes, hypertension and certain forms of cancer.  It is also detrimental emotionally and psychologically.

Despite this alarming fact, consumers are still drawn to foods that provide that pleasant sweet taste.   To help assuage the situation, food manufacturers have tried and tested various solutions in their quest to “responsibly” satisfy the sweet tooth.

There came the artificial or non-nutritive sweeteners: aspartame, saccharin, acesulfame-potassium, polydextrose, sucralose, thaumatin, alitame and sugar alcohols (polyols) like sorbitol, isomalt, lactitol, maltitol, mannitol and xylitol.   These generally have a GI of zero.

Thaumatin, an intensely sweet tasting protein is derived from the membranours sac of the katemfe fruit in West Africa. It has traditionally been used as a source of flavour. In the 1970s, Tate & Lyle began extracting thaumatin from the fruit and has coined the brandname TALIN. TALIN stands for “Tate And Lyle INgredients”. It is commercialized by the Overseal company.

The use of these chemically synthesized sweeteners have resulted to some adverse effects in humans.  A number of individuals may be allergic or highly sensitive to the use these high-intensity sugar substitutes.  There is also the issue on carcinogens with regards to saccharin. In addition to a number of health controversies, stability may oftentimes be limited.  Aspartame for example in beverage applications would usually last only for about 6 months.    The lingering sweet taste may also be a deterring factor.  Often, the perceived intense sweetness of these products is longer than desired; leaving an unpleasant sensation in the taste buds.   However, an advantage of using these types of sweeteners in addition to less or no calories is their cost.   The level of usage is much lower when using these sweeteners compared to sugar.

There are other sweetness enhancing products available, which are natural.  These sugar alternatives have been in use for many centuries.  The common process to produce these types of sugar involves evaporating the water content thus concentrating the natural sugars that are inherently present.

Agave is made from the agave plant, this is also the major component in making tequila.  The controversy with Agave is if it can still be classified as “raw food” and if it is actually a “healthy” sweetener.  A thorough discussion can be found from Debra Lynn Dadd’s website.

Panela – a brownish block of sugar made from sugarcane but not refined or bleached.  Very popular in parts of Asia and in South America.  It has many variations to its name.

Maple syrup – Made from the sap of Maple trees.  It is also very high in fructose and very viscous.

Yacón Syrup is made from 100% Yacón root, a close relative of the Jerusalem artichoke.  The process to make yacon syrup involves juicing the yacon tubers and then concentrating the juice to about 50-60 Bx.  It is similar to Maple Syrup in colour, but 40% less calories than Maple Syrup and contains Soluble Fibre.  It is also considered to be Prebiotic.

Palm sugar is sometimes called coconut sugar.  However, there is a clear distinction between the two, based on where the sap was sourced.  By name, Palm sugar was originally made from the sugary sap of the Palmyra palm or the date palm. Now it is also made from the sap of the sago and coconut palms and labeled as “coconut sugar.”   It is not to be confused with sugar derived from the coconut fruit but rather from a palm tree variety called coconut palm.  The sugar is commonly used in Southeast Asian desserts.

Coconut Sugar or cocosugar is produced from the evaporation of coconut sap or sweet toddy through boiling in an open container, and then allowed to cool and solidify. It was tested to contain a low Glycemic index (GI) of 35 and a higher amount of nutrients compared to that of table sugar’s which is at 64-68.

Stevia has recently become very popular in North America.  In Asia particularly Japan, its use has been traced 30 years ago.   It is actually a member of the Chrysanthemum family.  It is remarkable since it is 300 times sweeter than sugar but does not provide any calories or carbohydrates therefore it does not cause blood sugar to rise.  The downside of stevia is that its perceived sweetness is much prolonged and there is also some bitterness detected.

The Glycemic Index (GI) of a particular food is a number that indicates how fast sugar is released into the blood after consumption or how fast a food is likely to raise your blood sugar.  The table below shows the various GI levels of these natural sweeteners, Gi levels at 55 and below are considered Low GI foods, High GI foods are 70 and above.

Natural Sweetener                           Average Glycemic Index (GI)
Yacon Syrup   1-3
Palm sugar   35
Coconut sugar from coconut fruit   35
Agave  11
Maple syrup   54-55
Glucose consumed with
15-20 grams of fiber  57-85
Panela  63
White refined sugar  68
Pure glucose    100