Beverage Development Firm says "Vitamin Water Good For Industry"

Eatontown, NJ (PRWEB) September 18, 2007 -- Beverage development firm PTM Food Consulting says the new acquisition of Vitamin Water by Coca Cola was the best step the company made and worth every penny.

Company President and expert beverage development scientist Pete Maletto says Vitamin Water is one of the few products that is actually good for the people drinking the beverage, and its popularity is good for the industry. "The reasons are quite simple; the product contains no artificial colors or sweeteners and is devoid of high fructose corn syrup. Artificial colors have been long associated with hyperactivity and high fructose corn syrup has been linked to obesity. We have to clean up our food supply and this is a great start. Hopefully other beverage marketers and manufacturers will follow," Maletto said.

While critics have pointed that the product still contains fructose, Maletto said that crystalline fructose is perfectly fine as the sole sweetener in a beverage. "Crystalline fructose is a different animal than high fructose corn syrup. High fructose corn syrup has been shown to elevate blood sugar for an extended period of time, sustaining high levels of initial and delayed responses of insulin, which can be detrimental to your health. Crystalline fructose is converted by the liver so it does not have an immediate impact on blood sugar levels unlike high fructose corn syrup. And of course most of the Vitamin Water products have around 25% less sugar and calories as well."

PTM Food Consulting (http://www.foodconsultant.biz) has been pushing all its clients into using all natural ingredients for quite some time now and the advice is paying off. Marketing data now shows consumers are looking for foods and beverages that are all natural and devoid of chemicals that could be a danger to their health. "We spend an incredible amount of time looking into using all natural ingredients in our beverage development here in the US and Europe as well," said Maletto

Artificial colors are surfacing on the radar as another possible health issue as a recent study in the British medical journal The Lancet this past week has confirmed the hyperactivity connection that Maletto has been speaking about for years. Researchers found that when kids (ages 3, 8, and 9) increased their consumption of artificial colors, dyes and preservatives found in popular foods like candy and soft drinks, their behavior became progressively more hyperactive.

"Its so important to get these artificial colors out of our food supply. In fact the benefits of using natural colors is so vast. Many of these natural pigments can increase the antioxidant activity in the food as well, which decreases intracellular mutations in the human body and have the ability to boost the immune system," Maletto said.

PTM Food Consulting is also working on some new technologies that will allow them to reduce or eliminate preservatives all together, but the company views this change as a long-term project that is taking some time to evolve because of the effort placed into food safety.

The most important information for manufacturers and marketers is that retailers are now looking at cleaning up their labels as a response to the demand for natural products continues to climb. As consumers become more skeptical of mass production techniques, artificial ingredients and food safety issues, they are migrating to natural foods. Seeking optimal nutrition, the number of U.S. natural food and drink consumers will increase from to 113 million by the end of 2007, according to Datamonitor researchers.

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