Juicing Up Functional Foods, Beverages

Most government health documents recommend Americans increase their consumption of fruits and vegetables. In addition to offering fiber, antioxidants and other beneficial compounds, they have rounded taste profiles, affecting the nose and the mouth. In fact, while the tongue can only register basic tastes, the human nose can distinguish an amazing number of odors.

The essences and aromas of plants are due to their volatile or essential oils. These volatile substances are both water- and fat-soluble, permitting them to penetrate the moist mucus and lipid covering of nerve cells. Natural flavors such as strawberry may contain more than 100 volatile components, while a banana contains only a handful.

Whatever the number of components, the scent of fresh fruits is almost universally appealing. It is this wide appeal that has made fruit flavors such a draw in pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and functional food/beverage applications. Because there are so many different odors and tastes, chemists can blend flavor compounds to minimize harsh tones in a nutraceutical base or mask alkaloids in a pharmaceutical.

Flavoring is as much an art as a science. When a product is unbalanced in any of the taste attributes--too bitter or acidic--adding ingredients with other attributes can return it to equilibrium. For example, a bitter herbal extract could be balanced with the addition of sugar. However, that might not meet the manufacturer requirements for a healthy product; instead, the manufacturer could use a flavoring agent.

"Sweet fruity flavors, such as low acid fruit like banana or guava, can greatly complement overly acidic and bitter applications," said John Boddington, Ph.D., manager of natural products for Lakeland, Fla.-based Treatt USA. "We have seen these particular flavors successfully used to mask the acidic and bitter components in probiotic products, for example. In contrast, it is less tempting to flavor these products with an essence from an overtly acidic or bitter fruit such as lemon or grapefruit."

There are specific labeling requirements for flavors, which are found in the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) regulations, specifically 21CFR101.22. Natural flavor comes from the named food itself, such as "strawberry flavor." It refers to the "essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis" with the flavoring constituents from a natural product, with the primary function of flavoring. An artificial flavor is labeled as "artificial [food] flavor" and refers to flavoring not from natural sources.

Because many types of natural flavors can become quite expensive (such as the delicately flavored direct concentrate of strawberry), an increasingly popular "natural" labeling claim is W.O.N.F. "With Other Natural Flavors" refers to a product made using a natural flavor that is accentuated with complementary flavors. For example, strawberry bits in a nutritional bar could be dehydrated apple pieces, flavored with some natural strawberry flavor and other natural components that would round out the floral or fruit notes a consumer expects from "strawberry."

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