The sweeter side of health: opportunities and challenges in wellness confections.
Confections or candy are not usually the first products that come to mind when one thinks of "healthy." In fact, for nutritionally minded consumers, confections are often synonymous with the word "avoid," which may explain why many companies now are looking to add "healthy" or functional ingredients to their confectionery lines.Whether healthy confections ease the guilt of eating or even deliver actual benefits, they are receiving a good deal of attention these days. And with good reason. New twists on traditional confections--as well as the less traditional snack or energy bars--have begun hitting the market in a big way.
THE SWEET SPOT
If it's human nature for one to want his cake and eat it too, then it follows that a significant chunk of the population probably desires healthy cake, along with healthy candies and confections--providing they continue to taste like sweets. The energy/nutrition bar market growth is a testament to this phenomenon. For years, energy bars have commanded double-digit growth, having come a long way from the "chocolate-flavored leather" image characterizing early entries in the category. Many of today's bars feature really decadent flavors and textures, along with a cadre of vitamins, minerals, proteins and other ingredients with positive health benefits. Some are healthier than others, of course, but then different consumers are seeking different levels of nutrition and have varying tolerances for compromises in taste.
Hard candies, soft chews and even bubble gum have also entered the fortification game, providing small doses of nutrients in a wide range of forms and flavors--seemingly one for every palate and age group. The low-carbohydrate movement has brought an additional boost to many of these categories, posing some interesting challenges since the "bulk" of confection ingredients has traditionally been bulk sweeteners such as sucrose, fructose and corn syrup.
So, what's sweetening the pot for healthy confection manufacturers? A variety of ingredients are available for formulating low-sugar, low-calorie and low-carbohydrate confections with flavor profiles similar to their sugar-containing counterparts. The same holds for other ingredient types, as well.
GIVE IT YOUR "OL"
Let's begin with the sweet side. Replacing bulk ingredients in complex candy formulations is often the most formidable challenge, followed by achieving optimum flavor, particularly after the addition of unstable micronutrients that can contribute to off flavors and mouthfeel trouble.
Though not new to ingredients, the category known as sugar alcohols or poly-ols is becoming known for its use in many healthy confections. Sugar alcohols, which are often derived from a sugar of a similar name, typically look and function like sugar inasmuch as they are white, crystalline compounds that dissolve easily in water and can impact water activity. Their sweetness levels can vary, though most are less sweet than sucrose: Xylitol has about the same sweetness as sucrose, while sorbitol is 60 percent as sweet. Lactitol, by comparision, is only 40 percent as sweet as sucrose. Hence, combinations can be used to achieve the desired functional and sweetness levels. These can also be combined with artificial sweeteners to boost sweetness and further reduce calories.
Even if used as a one-for-one replacement for sucrose, sugar alcohols still can save calories since most are about half the calories at 2.0 to 2.6 calories per gram to sugar's 4 calories per gram. For carb-counters, most sugar alcohols have little to no impact on blood sugar, which is why they have been used in diabetic products for so long, and have created a new niche. In addition, they do not promote tooth decay like sugar does--xylitol has even been proven to prevent it.
This category of ingredients seems like the perfect solution to formulation challenges in sweet goods, even if a few cynics are wondering what the catch is. Well, poly-ols do have a few drawbacks, the worst being their potential laxative effect when consumed in large quantities. In fact, foods that conceivably could accrue consumption of more than 50 grams of sorbitol (the equivalent volume of an entire tin of Altoids) must state on their label, "Excess consumption may have a laxative effect." After Olestra, nobody wants that on their label, so the poly-ols have lost a little of their luster as a result of this regulation.
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT
With that caveat, what else is available to aid formulators in developing healthier sweet treats? Artificial sweeteners have come a long way in acceptability, particularly with the approval and proliferation of the sucralose--aka Splenda--sweetener, which has taken many product categories by storm with its sugar-like sweetness, sugar-like marketing and clean aftertaste. The other benefit of sucralose is its stability at high temperatures, which is often critical in confection manufacturing, especially for hard candies, which experience temperatures up to 300 degrees F, and hold that heat until fully formed and cooled.
While these high-intensity products deliver sweetness, most confectionery products also require bulk ingredients to provide texture, be it the glass formation in hard candies or the chewiness of nougat or caramel. Sugar alcohols can serve this purpose as well, but if formulators are looking for alternative ingredients, polydextrose or inulin offer the added benefit of functioning like fiber and/or prebiotics, though both may have gastrointestinal effects.
DELIVERING THE GOODS
Although health-enhancing confections may sound like an oxymoron, many examples of such products are on the market today. Cough drops are a great example of early functional confections; being fortified with zinc and echinacea to reduce the duration of a cold or stave it off, they truly take their place in the functional realm. The biggest challenge for these products is masking the potential bitter taste of herbs, as well as the metallic taste of any minerals used.
Calcium chews are a newer version of wellness confections, aimed at providing women with a good excuse to get their daily dietary calcium. The soft chew is a wonderful vehicle for the delivery of other bioactives such as vitamins or anti-oxidants, provided they can withstand the heat of manufacturing.
A notable example of innovation in this category is a vitamin supplement in the form of chewing gum, called Vitaball. Made with 100 percent of the RDA of 11 essential vitamins, this product surely put it product developers to the test, both in masking the vitamin flavors and ensuring that 100 percent of the RDA remains intact.
According to Bloomfield, Conn.-based Amerifit Nutrition, makers of Vitaball, vitamins are fused into the gum base and the coating to ensure they deliver on the label claim. Gum base is extremely hard at room temperature and must be heated to temperatures up to 200 degrees F to soften before mixing with sweetener and flavoring ingredients. This probably requires the addition of a significant overage of vitamins to both base and coating to ensure the 100 percent claim of the label claim remains in the final product and is released after chewing for 5 to 10 minutes.
The road to wellness can take many different directions. Consumers do want to have their cake or candy and eat it too. If manufacturers can deliver bits of positive nutrition in good-tasting vehicles that make people feel better about something they'll probably eat anyway, there is likely a sustainable market here. The key to wellness confections is to supplement the diet with functional ingredients in small doses, thereby ensuring consumers don't overindulge and proving that good things can--and do--come in small, good-tasting, packages,
Colleen M. Zammer is a Serif or Manager with TIAX LLC (formerly Arthur D. Little), Cambridse, Mass. zammer.c@tiax.biz.
Printer friendly Cite/link Email Feedback | |
Comment: | The sweeter side of health: opportunities and challenges in wellness confections. |
---|---|
Author: | Zammer, Colleen |
Publication: | Food Processing |
Geographic Code: | 1USA |
Date: | Nov 1, 2003 |
Words: | 1246 |
Previous Article: | Oh soy! Good news for the soy industry: studies presented at a recent symposium suggest that soy foods are edging closer to the mainstream. |
Next Article: | Pyramids, schools and vitamin E: why USDA and the industry still have their work cut out for them. |
Topics: |