Posted on: Wednesday, February 27, 2002

FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Stores giving 'health foods' more space

By Wanda A. Adams
Food Editor

The need to check out new products led me to take a walk around several Honolulu supermarkets last week, making note of changes I had not noticed during my usual rushed forays in search of something to make for dinner.

At Foodland Beretania, half an aisle is devoted to "health foods," with both the usual bulk items such as wheatless flours and newer, healthful convenience items. At Safeway Beretania, organic selections and less-refined fast foods have proliferated, as have energy bars and energy drinks. I was intrigued to notice four different brands of nondairy milk — soy- or rice-based — in three locations at Safeway: the refrigerator case, a "health food" section and near the canned cream in the baking section.

This reminded me of a prediction in the preface of the original edition of "Laurel's Kitchen," the famed natural foods cookbook, that someday sugary, nutrition-starved foods would be confined to dim, out-of-the-way shops (the usual lot of health food stores in those days) while healthy, whole foods would jam brightly lit, bustling supermarkets. Instead, the sugary, fatty treats have just moved over.

Worth noting is that there are some deals on those health food shelves. Shopping for sesame seeds recently, I found a pound bag of raw sesame seeds selling for almost the same price as a couple of ounces on the spice shelf just steps away at Foodland. Regardless of whether you care about unfiltered this or unprocessed that, it's worthwhile to compare prices.

One new product is Ocean Spray's line of white cranberry juice drinks — plain, peach and strawberry. The juices are made with a variety of cranberry that is very light in color, almost white; it's harvested in late summer or early fall and the juice is sweeter in flavor than that of red cranberries.

The new products were offered with price incentives that have boosted cranberry juice sales nationwide. Last week, Safeway had the 64-ounce white cranberry juices on sale for $5.39 on a buy-one-get-one-free deal. (Suggested retail, according to Ocean Spray, is $3.29 for a 65-ounce container.)

Our tasters compared the flavor of the White Cranberry Juice Drink (water, white cranberry juice and other fruit juices) to apple and white grape juices. Not surprisingly, tasters were more receptive to the juice when they didn't know what it was; when they were told it was a variety of cranberry juice, they expressed disappointment in the lack of tartness.

"It's as if they were trying to make a cranberry juice for people who don't like cranberry juice," said one.

Bingo! Ocean Spray's press materials tout the juice as offering the benefits of cranberry (primarily a large dose of vitamin C and an aid to urinary-tract health) to people who prefer a milder, sweeter flavor.