Posted on: May 18, 2007
Innovative Foods Put the ‘New’ in Nutritious
Grocery store shelves are lined with products promoting good health, eating fewer calories and dining on smaller portions for cook-free, easy eats
By Bev Bennett
CTW Features
You’ve probably heard the usual excuses people give for not improving their diets: no time, no cooking skills, can’t stand the taste of “healthy” food products.
Maybe you’ve been relying on those cliches, even though you know you should drop a few pounds or cut back on sodium to lower your blood pressure.
Apparently the food industry has been paying attention.
Food companies are introducing healthful products with greater convenience and ease of preparation and improved flavor. You’ll also see food packaging with portion control designed to keep you from overeating: Everything from chips to sodas to desserts are available in 100-calorie packages.
Several new products were recently introduced at the Food Marketing
Institute’s supermarket industry tradeshow in Chicago, and will appear on supermarket shelves this summer or in the fall. Here’s a taste of what’s good for you.
Kraft Foods offers more cookies and snacks packaged in 100-calorie portions under the Nabisco brand. Look for Lorna Doone Shortbread Cookie Crisps.
Kraft Foods teamed with the South Beach diet to offer South Beach Diet Chicken Salad Kits. This combo of chicken, cheese, nuts, fruit and salad dressing takes the work out of salad assembly.
Campbell Soup Company is producing or reformulating lower-sodium soups with more oomph. Creating tasty low-sodium soup has been a challenge, but the company feels it met its goal using lower-sodium sea salt and other technologies. One to recommend is Campbell’s Select Healthy Request Chicken with Egg Noodles Soup, which has 45 percent less sodium than standard formulations.
Green Giant responds to the need for easy-to-fix veggies with its line of Green Giant Fresh, steam-in-bag cleaned and chopped vegetables. The selection includes Sweet Potato Fries, Squash Medley and Cubed (butternut) Squash.
The Snack Factory adds a kick to low-fat, cholesterol-free pretzels with its zesty Buffalo Wing Pretzel Crisps. The crisps weigh in at 110 calories per serving.
Stonyfield Farm announces the debut of Oikos Organic Greek Style Yogurt. Greek yogurt is popular for its dense texture and rich flavor. The Stonyfield version has 16 grams of protein and 120 calories or less per 6-ounce serving in plain or vanilla flavors.
You’ll also find new nutritionally enhanced food products in the snack aisle of your supermarket. Manufacturers sometimes add vitamins and minerals to snack foods and soft drinks to give them a selling advantage.
But should you rely on high-fat, high-calorie snacks with added nutrients to balance your diet?
Dietitians are concerned about this possibility.
“Are we encouraging people to eat foods they otherwise shouldn’t and think they’re [the foods are] healthy because they’re fortified?” asks Tara Gidus, a registered dietitian and spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association.
How can you decide what’s appropriate?
“Look at your diet. If you’re eating a balanced diet you don’t need fortified food, “ says Gidus, a dietitian in private practice in Orlando, Florida.
“If a food wasn’t healthy before it was fortified, it’s not going to be much healthier after it’s fortified,” Gidus says.
