December 2011/Prepared Foods -- Functionally beneficial? Check! Trendy and marketable? Check! Easy to manufacture, ship and store? Check! Economically sound formulation? Check! Right…now, has anything been forgotten?
One of the top reasons functional food and beverage formulations fail should really be a “no-brainer”--it has to taste good. When examining the market of new food and drink products that hit the market under some type of “good-for-you” banner, the value of functional foods is proven: The functional food and beverage market is at almost $30 billion, according to Euromonitor International (www.euromonitor.com), Chicago. Yet, of the 5,000+ functional products launched since 2006, the 5-year mark for specific products can become a game of “Where are they now?”
“Products that may be very healthy will still deter consumers, if they do not taste good,” stress Euromonitor experts, in a recent report on the functional food market. Getting a product to stand out among the thousands of others competing for precious shelf space is difficult enough. Adding functionality to the mix raises the stakes considerably, because many functional ingredients present taste and texture challenges. Here are some up-trending ingredients that can help make functional flavor success happen.
Hot Peppers One of the biggest flavor trends has the good fortune of bringing an abundance of health into the picture. Chili peppers are known for medicinally important capsaicinoids. And, the axiom is usually “the hotter the better.” One newly popular pepper, the bhut jolokia--a.k.a., the “ghost chili”--is one of the hottest peppers in the world. In 2010, researchers Yi Liu, Ph.D., and Muralee Nair, Ph.D., at Michigan State University in East Lansing, quantified the functional components of capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin in ghost chilies and compared the content to the more common jalapeño and Scotch bonnet hot peppers. The concentration of these anti-inflammatory and cancer-protective chemicals in bhut jolokia was “about 338 and 18 times greater than in Scotch bonnet and jalapeño, respectively.” The scientists also found higher activity of lipid peroxidation and cyclooxygenase (COX-1 and -2) enzymes in inhibitory concentrations. Of course, formulators do not have to go with the trendiest peppers. All hot chili peppers are excellent, inexpensive and easy ways of bringing in big flavor with big health benefits.