Fiber Goes with the Functional Beverage Flow

Feeling thirsty? In need of quick hydration? Think you could use a long, cool swig from a tall bottle of something refreshing? Then how about a frosty glass of ... fiber?

“When you historically thought of fiber in beverages,” said Scott Turowski, technical sales, Sensus America, “you thought of something that you’d have to drink when you were old.” But that’s beginning to change. “As the population is aging,” he said, “even younger people are starting to recognize fiber’s benefits, and we’re starting to see it more.”

That rising profile has put pressure on the industry to crank out more palatably potable means of fiber delivery, and thanks to their efforts, it’s safe to say that the days of gulping down thick, gritty solutions are gone. Today’s fiber-fortified beverages are better fit to sip with a straw than slurp from a spoon. “Just think of fiber-fortified orange juice,” Turowski said. Tropicana’s Pure Premium Essentials packs 3 grams of soluble fiber per 8-oz. serving— about as much as in an actual orange. “We now have options to fortify these products with fiber,” he noted, “and not affect quality or make a horrible-tasting product.”

As L. Steven Young, principal, Steven Young Worldwide, Houston, and North American technical advisor, Matsutani America, stated, “By developing processes and analytical techniques that inherently yield fibers with high solubility and no coarseness, graininess or grit; that are low in viscosity, and color- and flavor-free; and that have high thermal and acid stability, we not only can introduce fiber to all types of beverages, but in some cases even make those beverages better.”

To understand how much fiber fortification has improved, it helps to understand what made it so challenging in the first place. “The biggest obstacle to the use of fiber in beverages has traditionally been the high viscosity associated with soluble fibers, and the unwanted turbidity in clear beverages,” said Lorraine Niba, business development manager, National Starch Food Innovation. Because they’re so hygroscopic, soluble fibers are notorious for sucking up water to a beverage’s textural and visual detriment. Plus, traditional isolation and separation techniques unleash fiber impurities that mar the beverage flavor.

That’s just the rap sheet for soluble fiber. As for insoluble, some industry experts flat-out declare them impractical in beverages. “Because they’re insoluble, they don’t dissolve in solution, and tend to precipitate of out the beverage,” Niba said. Because they, too, are quite hygroscopic, a little can bulk up a drink a few centipoises shy of sludge in no time.

However, there is great opportunity to add fiber into easier delivery systems for consumers. Michelle Schwenk, food scientist, Tate & Lyle Americas, noted, “Americans are way under-fibered.” The daily value (DV) for dietary fiber is 25 grams per 2,000 calories. Meanwhile, USDA’s 2005 update of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans raises those stakes even higher, recommending 14 grams per 1,000 calories consumed —or about 28 grams per day. The Chicago-based National Fiber Council (NFC) goes higher still, advocating an ambitious 32-gram daily intake.

Yet, according to the Columbia University Institute of Human Nutrition, New York, the average American doesn’t get even half that much, topping out at between 10 and 15 grams per day.

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