A drink to your health? Well, maybe.

By Kathy Egan, RD

Wonder how to make a million in tough economic times? Simple: Sell a consumable repeat-purchase product that implies it will create a sense of well being.

Nutraceuticals and functional food products fit this bill amazingly well.  Consumers will pay $3, $4 or even $5 or more for a 16-ounce (or less) bottle of flavored water or juice mix spiked with dietary supplements –and the actual manufacturing cost is pennies per bottle.

These things go in cycles. First we had energy boosters. Now, drinks that promise to calm us down.

A recent New York Times piece, “Skip the Scotch, Just Have a Swig of Mellowberry” by Stephanie Rosenbloom reported on this latest trend in supplement spiked beverages: relaxation drinks.

Rosenbloom writes:

There are already more than 350 kinds of relaxation drinks on the market, according to Agata Kaczanowska, an analyst with the research company IBISWorld. Instead of slogans like Jolt’s “All the sugar and twice the caffeine,” these new drinks proffer serenity with maxims like Unwind’s “Tired of being wired?” and Drank’s “Slow your roll.”

Yes, many of us could use a slower roll, but can it be proffered in a bottle?

Some of the more than 1, 200 supplement containing beverage on sale in North America

Marketers know just how to launch these products. They know that the initial consumer reaction must be good, but not too good. These products do best flying under the radar long enough to get a group following before the experts have a chance to weigh in on them.  Then, after lots of people are using a product, consumers fall prey to false logic, i.e. it must be okay if so many people are using it.

Yet, as Rosenbloom points out, these drinks are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration.

What’s a wanna-be slow-roller to do? For starters, eyeball the marketing materials. Careful reading of labels reveals that these product claims are subtly worded to allude to the desired result.  Most companies are savvy enough to avoid legally defined health/ nutrition claims. (For more information on health-claim regulation, go to the FDA website.)

Ultimately, any discussion of functional foods comes back to the two main issues around dietary supplements:

Are they what they say they are? And does the ingredient really perform the desired function?

Consumers are often lulled into a false sense of security when the product is a food or drink.  We’re not suspicious of fortified foods because Americans have been buying them since white flour became “enriched” in the 1940s. Today, an average consumer will swallow a variety of dietary supplements in the form of breakfast cereal, energy bars, juice  and milk.

There are two main resources for those interested in verifying the safety of their supplements: U.S. Pharmacopia. U.S. Pharmacopia will verify supplements and allow them to display the USP mark.  (For a list of approved brands, click here.)

NSF International has a more extensive and searchable listing of dietary supplements deemed safe  .  While USP focuses on the veracity of the ingredients, NSF emphasizes safety.

My advice: if you are interested in taking supplements–make a deliberate, educated choice based on dietary needs, weighing benefits against risks or unknowns.  Talking to a physician or nurse practitioner is wise, of course. But don’t stop there: If you don’t know how to decide what supplements might be beneficial for you, see a Registered Dietitian.

(Kathy Egan is The Food Watchdog’s resident “renaissance dietitian” and senior writer. Click here for more of her bio.)

Who says Gulf seafood is safe?

I watched a shopper and fishmonger at a high-end Seattle grocery debate the safety of a pile of succulent-looking, fresh, jumbo shrimp in the seafood case.

The shrimp weren’t from Thailand, Vietnam or even Mexico.  They were from the Gulf, from the waters off Louisiana or Mississippi. They weren’t frozen, packed months ago before BP’s oil rig blew up, sank, and began spewing millions of gallons of hazardous hydrocarbons over almost everything.

Fish suppliers across the country have sold off much of the frozen Gulf products they were hoarding. But now new, freshly caught, Gulf goodies are again showing up in restaurant kitchens and on the chipped ice of good fishmongers.

Good chefs and persnickety consumers have long coveted the taste of shrimp, crab, oysters and fish from the Gulf.

On Monday, a gaggle of top chefs from around the country went to Grand Isle, La., to confirm for themselves the safety of the Louisiana seafood. Many promised the shrimpers, crabbers and fishers that they would eagerly use what they catch as long as it’s safe.

There is fresh seafood in the pipeline and according to Louisiana State officials the supplies are gradually increasing as more harvesting grounds are declared safe from oil and dispersants.

Everyone knows the threat is real and that availability could change. Things such as the weakening Hurricane Alex, or those storms that will surely follow, can force the still-surging oil back over previously safe breeding ground.

Consumers should be confident in the quality of what’s being offered.  I think that buying seafood from the Gulf is a much safer gamble than consuming the virtually untested imported seafood when inundates our food supply.

While food-safety activists say barely 2 percent of the imports are inspected by understaffed FDA port inspections, there is an elaborate and intricate system for ensuring the safety of food from the Gulf.  If you want more information, here is a link to a story I wrote this week for AOLNews.

–Andrew Schneider

Honey woes out in the open

This country’s major importers of honey are taking a stand against illegal, often tainted product — a big change from their usual keep-it-quiet approach to this industry problem.

Andrew Schneider’s AOL News article on the subject reports that honey importers here are determined to get consumers involved.

“For more than three years, federal investigators have had hit-or-miss successes trying to intercept box-car-sized loads of illegally labeled honey coming into ports on both coasts and along the Gulf of Mexico,” he writes.

Stopping the imports is difficult because much of it is intentionally mislabeled to obscure its origins and avoid stiff tariffs. This bogus honey, especially that from China, is often contaminated with illegal animal antibiotics.

Schneider quotes industry leader Jill Clark, vice president of Dutch Gold Honey of Lancaster, Pa.

“We estimate that millions of pounds of Chinese honey continue to enter the U.S. from countries that do not have commercial honey businesses,” says Clark.”For example, countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines and Mongolia raise few bees and have no history of producing honey in commercial quantities…”

Schneider reports that a new site has been launched in order to alert consumers, retailers, food processors and others about the threat of inferior or dangerous honey. HonestHoney.com, is backed by Dutch Gold, Golden Heritage Foods of Hillsboro, Kan., Burleson’s Inc. from Waxahachie, Texas, and Odem International from Rosemere, Quebec, one of North America’s largest honey suppliers.

If you’re imagining a bounty on that little plastic bear in your cupboard, keep in mind most of the honey coming into the U.S. arrives in huge tankers or containers and goes straight into cereals, breads, cookies, yogurts, candies and other goods.

Even worse, Schneider reports, “investigators say that some food processors are prime — and often willing — targets for brokers trying to offload lower-cost, bogus honey.”

“Those behind the new initiative say the illegal honey sales have cost the U.S. up to $200 million in uncollected import duties in the past two years and threaten the domestic honey business and the future of America’s beekeeper,” writes Schneider.

–Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett

Honey safety back in the news

That cute little bear-shaped honey bottle you grab off the supermarket shelf might not be as healthy as it looks.

For the details, see “Honey laundering bust highlights sticky problem,” a piece I wrote this week for AOL news.

–Andrew Schneider

Nanoparticles coming to a grocery near you

In the past, it took the skill or luck of the cook and the right touches of spices, herbs and other magic potions to seduce taste, texture, flavor and aroma from the communal pot.

This photo by ABC.net.AU shows nanoparticles of titanium dioxide, which, according to safety authorties, is used in thousands of consumer products, including some ice cream and icings. A recent UCLA study showed that large doses of this nanoparticle in the water of test animals caused DNA distruction.

Today, that culinary magic is being dished out by scientists rearranging atoms into chemical particles never before seen.  Some of these almost supernatural nanoparticles are heading toward your grocery shelves or, according to some government investigators, are there already.

I began chasing the intricacies of the fascinating and terrifying world of nanotechnology about 15-months ago, even before my newspaper – the Seattle Post-Intelligencer – was shut down by the corporate wizards.  This week, AOL News, my new employer, is publishing eight stories and charts and photos on nanotechnology and how it is and will impact your lives.

Scores of studies show that many nanoparticles have the potential for delivering significant harm to various organs, the blood supply, even the brain.  Some of the best food scientists in the world complain that far too few studies were being done on nanomaterial that was (or is) eaten.

Check out this cameo from the AOL story on food:

At last year’s Institute of Food Technologists international conference, nanotechnology was the topic that generated the most buzz among the 14,000 food-scientists, chefs and manufacturers crammed into an Anaheim, Calif., hall. Though it’s a word that has probably never been printed on any menu, and probably never will, there was so much interest in the potential uses of nanotechnology for food that a separate daylong session focused just on that subject was packed to overflowing.

In one corner of the convention center, a chemist, a flavorist and two food-marketing specialists clustered around a large chart of the Periodic Table of Elements (think back to high school science class). The food chemist, from China, ran her hands over the chart, pausing at different chemicals just long enough to say how a nanoized version of each would improve existing flavors or create new ones.

One of the marketing guys questioned what would happen if the consumer found out.

The flavorist asked whether the Food and Drug Administration would even allow nanoingredients.

The FDA would not permit me to interview anyone on the record about its efforts to regulate the safety of food products and packing that involves nanomaterial.

–Andrew Schneider