Comments on: The latest functional foods!

By: Making Functional Foods Functional | Refresh

Making Functional Foods Functional | Refresh — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:08:03 +0000

[...] hope. But now retailers and manufacturers need to back up these claims. Nutrition experts like Marion Nestle say these products “are about marketing, not health”. And in its report, PricewaterhouseCoopers [...]

By: Marion

Marion — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:28:13 +0000

@Mary–I discuss the Golden Rice issue in my book, Safe Food (2003). I am currently working on an updated edition, but the recent research demonstrating that beta-carotene is absorbed from the rice and converted to vitamin A really doesn’t change anything. I never doubted it would be absorbed and converted, as long as there was some fat in the diet (butter in this case) to aid absorption.

By: Mary

Mary — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 15:51:24 +0000

Speaking of functional foods, I have heard someone recently quoting Marion on Golden Rice. But they seem to have old information. There’s new information on the levels of vitamin A–I just saw that study. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19369372

Can you speak to that research? Was it good work and done properly? Looked promising to me.

By: ABR

ABR — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:47:07 +0000

I take your point…at least partially.

Certainly, if a parent is relying on Froot Loops to be a significant source of fiber in their child’s diet, there’s something wrong. But if their children are already consuming the cereal, the added fiber may make the parent feel better and deliver the child some needed fiber. What’s the big deal?

And, personally, if I’m going to eat ice cream anyway (and believe me, I will), why not get some extra calcium (or probiotics or whatever) with it? I don’t see what’s wrong with that.

By: Anthro

Anthro — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:04:04 +0000

I think you are absolutely right to be suspect of their intentions. What a bunch of silly doublespeak in the Kellogg press release!

Calcium added to ice cream takes the cake (or ice cream) for sheer marketing silliness. Do people really respond to this stuff? (Obviously they do, sadly.)