Claims marketers make: formulating with common ingredients that have healthful halos enables marketers to make a variety of claims

Dairy Foods, Sept, 2004

Does your marketing counterpart regularly ask you to develop a wonder food that he or she can promote as such? If yes, read on.

Regulatory and scientific advancements are making it possible to take an ordinary food, add some ordinary ingredients and turn it into one "extraordinary" new product. The ordinary ingredients referred to are berries, chocolate, nuts and tea. The ordinary food, which, we in the dairy industry know is anything but ordinary, is milk.

How is this possible? Well, for stallers, science is showing us that each of these four common ingredients possess very healthful components ranging from antioxidants, which reduce the signs of aging, to omega-3 fatty acids, which have been found to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Then there's the regulatory component. As part of FDA's efforts to provide Americans with information to make better nutritional choices, the agency has made it easier for marketers to convey accurate, up-to-date and science-based information to consumers about the health consequences of consuming these ingredients, as well as others.

What FDA has done is developed a process for marketers to be able to make qualified health claims on products. The premise here is that a better-informed public is able to choose foods that are more nutritious, potentially addressing such urgent public health problems as the rise in obesity.

(On a side note, FDA sort of had to do this, as the former label claim process, which required all claims to be backed by significant scientific agreement, was found to be in violation of the first amendment. To overcome this violation, FDA decided to design a program that allows unproven claims to be made on foods, but with disclaimers designed to discourage the far-fetched ones.)

FDA has designed a process for systematically evaluating and ranking the scientific evidence for a qualified health claim. This ranking system categorizes the quality and strength of the scientific evidence to every proposed qualified health claim. The highest grade, A, means thai there is significant scientific agreement about the health claim. The evidence supporting the claim is derived from well-designed studies conducted in a manner consistent with generally recognized scientific procedures and principles. Such a claim requires no disclaimer and is referred to as an "unqualified health claim." There are currently 12 such claims and descriptions of them can be found at www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/lab-ssa.html#regs.

Unqualified health claims are not new. What's new are the claims with grades B, C and D. These are "qualified health claims" because they require a disclaimer or other qualifying language to ensure that they do not mislead consumers. The grade of B is assigned to those petitions for which there is good scientific evidence supporting the claim, but the evidence is not entirely conclusive. A grade of C applies to claims for which the evidence is limited and inconclusive. The fourth level, D, is given to claims with little scientific evidence to support them. More information is available at www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/lab-qhc.html.> Beneficial ingredients

The nut industry was the first, and so far the only, to take FDA tip on its qualified health claim offer. Ranked a B, packages of approved nuts can bear the claim: Scientific evidence suggests but does not prove that eating 1.5oz per day of most nuts as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol may reduce the risk of heart disease.

What's special about nuts? Nuts are good sources of monounsaturated fat, protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals considered to be beneficial for heart disease prevention, cholesterol lowering, cancer prevention and an adjunct to weight loss. Walnuts, specifically, also contain omega-3 fatty acids, which are heart protective and have been shown to improve heart circulation.

The nut claim cannot be made on foods that contain nuts, but the healthful halo does transfer over. Consumers may find a frozen dessert, particularly a frozen yogurt product more appealing when labels emphasize the inclusion of nuts.

Then there are berries. Strong-colored berries such as red raspberries and blueberries are recognized as being concentrated sources of antioxidants thanks to the high levels of the colorants called anythocyanins. In fact, compared to nearly 40 other fruits and vegetables, blueberries rank the highest in disease-fighting antioxidants.

An assay, called ORAC (oxygen radical absorbance capacity), quantifies the antioxidant-capacity of food. Blueberries provide 2,400 ORAC units per 100g. From tin antioxidant capacity standpoint, 100g of fresh blueberries could deliver the equivalent antioxidant capacity of five servings of sonic fruits and vegetables. Furthermore, recent research shows that blueberries may act to protect the body against damage from oxidative stress, one of several biological processes implicated in aging and in the development of a number of neuro-degenerative diseases.

Blueberries, as well as other berries, are a favorite in dairy-based beverages, frozen desserts, smoothies and yogurt. In the produce section of grocery stores, pints of the fresh fruit often contain statements such as "rich source of antioxidants." Even blueberry juice packages have been seen with flags such as "The #1 Antioxidant Fruit." Dairy products can use similar language, too.