等待super-nutrition革命

鉀chloride-based鹽低鹽替代品即食餐,甜味劑如木糖醇無糖飲料和口香糖,嚐起來像白麵包和全麥麵包。這些都是健康的創新,無疑是幫助現在的食物更有營養。但他們並不完全等同於推出大眾的汽車。沒有想象力的重要飛躍,這個行業隻是讓消費者更快的馬當它應該是21世紀發展21世紀需要的食物。今天,大多數食品工業研發項目集中在將新的成分納入現有的產品,應對消費者的擔憂。但這些問題的核心是一個渴望更大的健康和營養。大步向前將super-nutrition。這可能意味著,當前的研發將會白費力氣。美味的發展和純天然替代鈉是允許生產商創造低鹽即食餐。但是快餐仍然即食餐是否低鹽與否,往往是低營養價值。 Similarly, while sugar-free soft drinks increasingly taste more and more like the Real Thing, they remain nutritionally void. As a prominent figure in the US nutrition field recently asked, since when did such a product become the default drink of choice? The hold-up for companies in pushing towards profound nutritional upgrading lies in a belief that consumers will not buy differently. But eating habits change. In the UK, today, people already eat a menu that would have been unrecognizable 30 years ago. And food companies have the market awareness, the technology and the ingredients to shift consumer expectations of what healthy food should be. It is therefore up to food makers to provide viable alternatives to traditional products, not just healthier carbon copies. Innovations such as microencapsulation mean that manufacturers have greater flexibility than ever before, while companies such as David Michael and Chr Hansen are pioneering new natural flavors and colors. In addition trans-fat free nonhydrogenated soybean oil is being developed, while new sweeteners including dihydrochalcones, derived from citrus fruits, are on the horizon. Surely with this amount of innovation going on, manufacturers can do better than simply reel off versions of tried and tested formulae. It is a tough industry to be in, and consumer trends and tastes will of course continue to play a hugely influential role in what food manufacturers can produce. Reticence is entirely understandable. Food makers, operating in intensely competitive conditions with increasingly narrow margins, are inevitably nervous about throwing caution to the wind and telling consumers that, in fact, this is what they should be consuming. But it is precisely for these reasons that food makers should now focus on the future. The industry has the opportunity to redefine the terms of the debate; to say to consumers that healthy food does not have to be merely a slightly more nutritious imitation of what they're used to. That means assigning a greater portion of R&D resources to developing wholly new products that crack the nutrition mission. Success is never guaranteed, but it is a truism that fortune favors the brave. When Ford finally succeeded in establishing his motorcar company in 1903, it was his third attempt. By 1918, half of all cars in America were Model Ts. And only cowboys were still riding horses. Anthony Fletcher is the editor of FoodNavigator.com and is a specialist writer on food industry issues. With an international focus, he has lived and worked in the UK, France and Japan. If you would like to comment on this article please e-mail anthony.fletcher@novisgroup.com.