The Functional Confection Connection

September 2001

The Functional Confection Connection

By Lynn A. Kuntz
Editorial Director

No facet of the food industry seems able to avoid the functional foods tide. The next category poised to ride the wave is confectionery products, good-for-you sweets and dietary supplements in candy form. “From a convenience standpoint, as we all become more and more cognizant of the fact that many of these substances are to our benefit, we keep looking for ways to incorporate them into a wide variety of materials so that consumers are given options more attractive than pills and capsules each day,” says John Urbanski, vice president, technical sales and services, Wilbur Chocolate Company, a Cargill Foods Company, Lititz, PA. “Instead we can plan a balanced meal that includes what we look at as normal foods. People are looking at confectionery products as a more and more attractive means to do this.”

It’s not a big leap. The history of nutraceuticals in candy and gum form goes back at least to the ancient Greeks, who chewed mastic gum to clean their teeth. From before the 14th century, European apothecaries used licorice to soothe coughs and colds. Back in this country, the Smith Brothers started making candy-like concoctions to stave off coughs in the mid-1800s, and before the turn of the century, Beeman’s touted pepsin gum as a digestive aid.

These types of products have seen a resurgence over the last several years, positioned mainly in the supplement aisle, but occasionally in the candy aisle, enhanced with vitamins, minerals, herbs and other health-enhancing ingredients. In addition, not only fortified products can wear a cloak of health, but even products that have been considered integral food ingredients for years can enter the class. No one really considers Hershey’s Almond Joy® a health food. But the almonds, for example, might help lower low-density lipoprotein (LDL), plus they contain antioxidant flavonols quercetin and kaempferol. And then there’s chocolate.

Chocoholics rejoice
It’s difficult to resist chocolate and with good reason — despite all the old wives’ tales about chocolate causing acne, migraines, etc. — it’s actually chock-full of beneficial compounds. And though the high fat and calorie content means the average person should avoid making an entire meal of it, chocolate, as well as cocoa powder, can be more than a treat for the sweet tooth.

While it’s not enough to account for the satisfaction that a big bite of chocolate brings, chocolate does contain low levels of mood-altering chemicals such as methylxanthines, a group of water-soluble compounds that include caffeine, theobromine and theophylline, and phenylethylamines, a class of chemicals that contains amphetamines. However, unless you’re a night owl, the best reason to munch on chocolate just might be its flavonoid antioxidants. A 40-gram serving of chocolate contains 400 mg of flavonoids, and the darker the chocolate, the more antioxidants. The primary group of antioxidant flavonoids is the procyanidins, which includes epicatechin and catechin, the same type of compounds that have been identified in tea as health promoters.

Processing can decrease cocoa’s antioxidant levels; especially those processes that remove the astringency — often a result of the naturally occurring polyphenol flavonoids. Longer cocoa-bean fermentions lose more polyphenols. Higher roasting temperatures decrease the polyphenol content, as does the duration of the heat exposure.

Alkalizing also can have a negative impact on polyphenol levels. Mars Incorporated, McLean, VA, has developed a proprietary cocoa-bean process to maintain more of the natural polyphenols, and company products made this way now carry the name Cocoapro™.

Cocoa may help reduce blood clots by relaxing the inner surface of blood vessels, keeping blood pressure down, and preventing hardening of the arteries. Research from Dr. C. Tissa Kappagoda, professor of medicine, University of California School of Medicine, Davis, indicates that chocolate compounds promote this effect by increasing nitric-oxide concentrations, which relaxes blood vessels.

Chocolate’s antioxidants seem to promote other heart-healthy effects. They may reduce LDL oxidation, reducing the formation of plaque on artery walls, according to research headed up by Joe A. Vinson, Ph.D., Department of Chemistry, University of Scranton, PA. In the December 1999 Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, Vinson and colleagues found that chocolate flavonoids have a greater effect than vitamins such as ascorbic acid in limiting the oxidation of cholesterol in LDLs and very-low-density lipoproteins.

Super chocolates
With all these benefits at the start, it’s not surprising that many product designers are looking to up chocolate’s nutritional ante. Chocolate or compound coatings have long been an important element in increasing acceptability of nutrition bars. But for a more authentic candy example look to SmartChocolate®, a line of organic chocolate infused with natural botanicals, sold by The Functional Foods Co., Roseville, MI.

Candymaker Tom Morley Jr. teamed up with Jimmy Schmidt, chef/ proprietor of The Rattlesnake Club, Detroit, to formulate a line of four SmartChocolate bars. These are based on organic chocolate — in keeping with the duo’s belief in sustainable agriculture — with truffle centers infused with botanicals that reflect the products’ names: Serenity (St. John’s wort, kava kava and ginseng with a dark chocolate truffle center); Memory (gingko biloba, ginseng and yerba mate with a dark chocolate truffle center); Energy (ginseng, guarana, gotu kola, yerba mate and green tea with a coffee truffle center); and Passion (damiana, ginseng, sarsaparilla and gotu kola with an almond truffle center).

“Jimmy is an herb consumer himself and began to think of chocolate as a delivery system for the herbs,” says Morley. “First and foremost, we wanted to develop a product with great taste and then looked at the herbs as a value-added element.” The flavor target was a European, premium-style chocolate, with “higher cocoa solids, a much more full-bodied flavor profile,” he says.

Herbs do present flavor challenges, but with some careful flavor crafting they can be overcome. “With the energy bar, which uses the most significant level of ginseng, it’s got an earthy kind of brown flavor that can be tough to work with. We found that by adding a natural coffee to the truffle center that carries the herb, it balanced out that spike very nicely. With the kava we found a higher percentage of dark chocolate in the center, along with a little milk chocolate helped to smooth that flavor out.” Damiana melded pleasantly with an almondy amaretto-like profile.

Other chocolate options
Another possibility to improve the nutritional profile of chocolate is adding long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), omega-3 fatty acids derived from a fish (menhaden) or a DHA-rich marine algal (Schizochytrium) source. These ingredients also have been approved for use in other candies and gum. Researchers are finding a broad range of potential health benefits, including reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, as well as improved maternal health, immune system health and healthy infant neural development. Eight international food nutrition organizations recommend an intake of 200 to 2,000 mg per day of omega-3, DHA and EPA, and some researchers suggest a daily consumption of about 3,000 mg per day. Says Mary E. Van Elswyk, Ph.D., R.D., vice president of scientific affairs, OmegaTech Inc. Boulder, CO: “The typical American intake is approximately 75 to 100 mg per day of DHA plus EPA, which is below the level OmegaTech believes useful, and below the beneficial level supported by clinical and epidemiological work.”

Researchers at OmegaTech have successfully made chocolate-based confections fortified with DHA. “Chocolate is a widely accepted and consumer-friendly product, as such, it is an excellent vehicle for delivering meaningful levels of essential nutrients such as DHA,” says George Stagnitti, director of application at the company. “DHA Gold oil is easy to incorporate and neutral in flavor in confectionery products. Key criteria sought in the use of chocolate were maintaining the organoleptic qualities of the product, ingredient compatibility and overall product stability.”

OmegaTech has tested DHA fortification in confectionery products at levels that range from 60 mg DHA per piece to 600 mg DHA per piece. “These are relatively low levels of addition compared with certain confectionery ingredients and have minimal physical impact upon the overall confectionery formulation,” Stagnitti points out.

Researchers at Cargill haven’t stopped there. They have been working on a wide range of fortified chocolate products with a broad appeal to functional-foods designers: protein, fiber, calcium and magnesium, vitamins, polyphenolic flavonoids and sterol esters.

The protein work’s goal encompasses protein fortification with whey or soy isolates without some of the negatives frequently encountered in high-protein proteins, says Urbanski. He says they have been able to successfully incorporate enough protein to achieve a level of 25% in coatings and inclusions. “Cocoa liquor naturally has about 14% to 15% protein, in cocoa powder that elevates to as much as 22% to 23%, but is not necessarily a terribly high-quality protein,” he explains. “It does serve as a boost to the total protein available, although it depends on the type of product you’re trying to make. For instance, if you are looking for the 6.25-gram soy-protein claim, it’s obviously not going to count for you. But if you’re working with a 90% soy protein isolate, achieving those levels in a single serving of around 50 grams isn’t that hard to do.”

But protein-fortified chocolate can be a boon to those working on bars. “By cramming all of the protein components into the bar center itself, they occasionally face water- activity problems,” says Urbanski. “The flexibility of putting some of that protein into the fatty matrix on the outside or a chocolate chip on the inside, gives them the ability to control that a little better.” This technique virtually enrobes the protein so it has less of a tendency to soak up water.

As for vitamins and minerals, again the ingredient for fortification matters. Calcium carbonate seems to be “the most efficient in terms of calcium delivery,” says Urbanski. “We found that you can make a bar that delivers the full RDA by doing things like manipulating the particle size and working it in at an early stage in the process; you won’t get a chalky mouthfeel at all. Vitamins can be tough if there’s something that needs to be covered up from a flavor standpoint, but with a little formulation doctoring for flavor, it’s not impossible to get something that tastes good.”

Across the candy counter
It’s not just chocolate. Other confectionery categories have caught the nutraceuticals wave. Around the world, shoppers can find mints such as Canada’s Warp Mints, a “high-octane” mint with ginseng, gingko, and guarana, or Swiss Ricola’s sugar-free GreenMint lozenges with green tea extract. In the States, one might pick up Pfizer’s Adams division (Warner-Lambert Consumer Group) fruit-flavored yogurt chews, Body Smarts, fortified with vitamins A, C and E, oligofructose (25% DV per 40-gram serving) and calcium (30% DV). For another sweet calcium supplement, pop a couple of Viactiv™ Soft Calcium Chews — recently purchased by McNeil Nutritionals (Port Washington, PA) — in orange cream, caramel, milk chocolate or mochaccino flavors, and get 50% of the calcium DV (500 mg) per chew. Or they might just opt for a simple, back-to-basics, herb-flavored drop like Shaker Country Meadowsweets, a line of botanical herbal confections, sold by Hillside, NJ-based Hillside Candy, with flavors from Rosemary Tangerine to Lemon Anise to Ginger.

The functions of these added nutrients and botanicals vary. For example, Ricola says that green tea “promotes general physical well-being,” and acts as a breath freshener “thanks to the dried, unfermented tea leaves.”

Many companies sell zinc lozenges to alleviate the duration and severity of common cold symptoms, but the only really effective form is zinc gluconate, says Robert Boutin, executive vice president, Knechtel Laboratories, Division of Knechtel Research Sciences Inc., Skokie, IL, with a level ranging from about 15 up to 30 mg zinc per lozenge as the usual dose. “One of the problems with zinc gluconate is that it has a bad taste and gives you a metallic astringency in the mouth, plus it’s expensive. Sometimes people want to substitute zinc citrate; it’s fairly cheap, it doesn’t have the astringency, but the problem is it’s so insoluble it doesn’t do anything. So people buying it aren’t really getting an effective product.”

Hardly anyone wants to eat the recommended number of fruit and vegetables, but product designers who want to sweeten delivery of some of the phytochemicals found in them might incorporate specially designed extracts. “At present, the jury is still out on the precise levels of phytochemical moieties which confer health benefits,” says Yosuf Chaudhry, food scientist, GNT USA Inc., Tarrytown, NY. “However, the recommended dietary guidelines suggest that a person should eat 3 to 5 servings of vegetables and 2 to 4 servings of fruits a day. In that case, a person would take in approximately 5 to 6 mg of mixed carotenoids and 20 to 50 mg of anthocyanins; both of which vary widely as they depend upon the types of fruits and vegetables.”
The company offers Nutrifood® products, standardized extracts from fruits and vegetables that contain anthocyanins, flavonoids, polyphenols and carotenoids. For example, adding 3 grams of Nutrifood Complex to a serving gives 33.0 mg total anthocyanins, and 1.1 mg total carotenoids. Chaudhry suggests adding the products to chocolate center fillings, and sugar-, pectin- and gelatin-based confectionery products. In a high- heat process, such as a typical hard-candy cook, “the change (in the nutrient content) will be insignificant, with the exception of some heat-labile vitamins and minerals. Our experience has shown that levels of phytochemicals sustain a negligible loss.” He does recommend a neutral to acidic pH for the ideal system.

In general, if the level of the active ingredient is low enough, Boutin finds that the formulation changes will be minimal if at all. However, if you look at fortifying a chew with high levels of calcium, for example, you can have problems. “The calcium wants to act as a crystal initiator or nucleator,” he says.

“The challenge in mineral fortification is balancing physical properties, such as solubility, with physiological properties, such as bioavailability,” notes Stu Gelbard, president, Barrington Nutritionals, Harrison, NY. “One of the most popular forms of calcium, for instance, is neither soluble nor considered highly bioavailable, so developers are forced to investigate new forms of the desired minerals.”

Sweet somethings
While sucrose has its place in functional candies, many sweetener alternatives provide specific health benefits. Alternative sweeteners might be used for calorie control, for products designed for diabetics, and/or for dental health.

Polyols, or sugar alcohols, are derivatives of sugars that, unlike traditional sugars, are only partially metabolized, then slowly absorbed in the small intestine, says Ron Deis, director, product and process development at SPI Polyols, Inc., New Castle, DE. “This results in several advantages, for example, polyols do not increase blood-glucose or insulin levels, allowing diabetics to better balance their diet,” he says. “Because they are only partially metabolized, the caloric value of polyols ranges from 0.2 to 3.0 kcal per gram.”

Sorbitol has been used for decades in boiled hard candies, and candy manufacturers have become familiar with its unique handling properties. “Crystalline or liquid sorbitol are used in batch deposit manufacturing, and maltitol syrup often is used in continuous depositing,” says Deis. “Maltitol syrup contains over 50% maltitol, which is sweeter than sorbitol. Sorbitol has a lower melt point than sucrose, and is unique in that it crystallizes relatively fast. Set time can be controlled by the type of sorbitol product used. Hydrogenated starch hydrolysates (HSH) and maltitol syrups were developed a number of years ago, and offer a wide range of polymer diversity to fit any type of candy manufacture or level of sweetness desired.” HSHs do not crystallize, so they make a good option for stable sugar-free candies.
Deis cautions that, upon storage, hard candies can pick up moisture and undergo what is called “cold flow,” resulting in the formerly shaped candy piece becoming a flat mass after packaging. “Cold flow can be controlled either by packaging or polyol selection,” he recommends. “Higher-molecular-weight HSHs will help to control flow, or the HSHs may be blended with isomalt.”

Deis says that: “Product developers should look to the unique properties each polyol can provide, and consider that they work better in combination than by themselves.” For additional information, he suggests accessing a polyol comparison chart at http://www.spipolyols.com.

A sugar-free milk chocolate that matches the taste and quality of its sugared brethren can be difficult to design. But Danisco Sweeteners, Copenhagen, Denmark, may have hit on one solution. While researchers have successfully replaced sucrose in chocolate, standard lactose-containing milk powder was harder to replace. The company’s researchers came up with a spray-dried milk powder substitute with all the components of skim-milk powder, but the lactose replaced with sweeteners, such as lactitol. The milk powder substitute is marketed by Danisco Sweeteners under the brand name Minolac®.

Chew on this
One area where polyol sweeteners clean up is in gums formulated to improve dental health. Dental gums first appeared in the United States in March 1998 with Church & Dwight’s Arm & Hammer Dental Care Baking Soda Gum. The manufacturer claims it can reduce plaque as much as 25%, and provides clinical support. Warner-Lambert’s Adams division makes Trident Advantage.

Polyols, also known as sugar alcohols, are non-cariogenic; they resist metabolism by oral bacteria. These can break down sugar and starch into acids that may promote cavities or erode tooth enamel. The FDA has approved the use of a “does not promote tooth decay” health claim for labeling sugar-free foods containing polyols. “In fact, xylitol is anticariogenic and may also have other health benefits as well,” notes Deis. Xylitol also helps develop a refreshing flavor because it produces a perceived sensation of coolness as it solubilizes in the mouth due to its negative heat of solution.

Whether gum, chocolate, lozenge or other sweet product, Boutin sees nutraceutical candies as an opportunity for candy manufacturers to enter a very profitable market that utilizes both technical expertise and underutilized manufacturing capacity. However, “some look at the complexity of producing the products — like making sure the actives are evenly distributed, record keeping — and shy away from the business,” he says. “But I try to remind them that they are looking at an entirely different price point than regular candy and that an extra penny or so of work may be well worth it.”

Stagnitti envisions tremendous growth potential for functional or nutraceutical confections. “The key driver for growth is in the development of consumer awareness with respect to the benefits offered by essential nutrients such as DHA,” he says. “Next, functional confectionery products must deliver fully upon consumer expectation and provide clinically tested and proven benefit and value to the consumer.”

While marketers need to enter this market with caution — one of the cardinal rules of parenting is to teach children that medicine is not candy — there are still benefits to be had by manufacturers and consumers alike. And the best route to those benefits is espoused by Morley: “At the end of the day we need to let good science prevail.”

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