FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Picking among new products
By Wanda A. Adams
Food Editor
Time to look at a few new products:
Vanilla Coke. First, the most hyped. Answer me this: Why would the producer of arguably the world's most successful manufactured food product think it necessary to continually tamper with success? Do the words "Classic Coke" mean nothing to these people? Do they have nothing else to do? Bottom line: The vanilla flavor is faint and chemical and not at all like the old-time soda fountain vanilla cokes. Note the use of the words "vanilla flavor" on the label; this tells you the ingredient is unlikely to be natural vanilla extract. Skip it.
Kashi cereals.The Kashi brand of health-oriented cereals is proliferating like mushrooms. Brands within the brand include the "Good Friends" group, which brings the trademark Kashi "seven whole grains and sesame" cereal together with other ingredients, such as dried fruit. The latest is Good Friends Cinna-Raisin Crunch, which combines "flakes, twigs and fiber clusters" for texture and cinnamon and raisins for flavor. Per fl cup serving, the cereal offers: 90 calories, 1 gram of polyunsaturated fat, no cholesterol, 70 milligrams sodium, 24 grams carbohydrate, 8 grams dietary fiber and 6 grams of sugars. Kashi "Heart to Heart" cereal was formulated with heart health in mind; in addition to a similar nutrition profile, it contains grape seed extract and green tea extract which offer bioflavinoids that act as antioxidants. Heart to Heart also offers 100 percent of the daily value for folic acid and vitamins B6 and B12, which help regulate a metabolite that may increase the risk of heart disease. Suggested retail is $3.50 per 13-ounce box; it sells here for between $2.79 (on sale) and $3.79.
Hawaiian Sun Green Tea. This familiar Hawai'i brand, known for fruit drinks, now is offering a new green tea with ginseng product, in stores at Longs, Daiei, Star Markets, Kmart Wal-Mart, Times, Foodland/Sack 'n Save. It's sweetened with Maui turbinado sugar; the taste is fairly light (as compared to more highly sweetened juice drinks) and clean with no disagreeable aftertaste. This one's not for dieters, though, at 110 calories a can. The price is in line with other Hawaiian Sun juice drinks: $1.49-$1.59 for the six-pack.
Muir Glen tomato products. Muir Glen, the country's largest producer of canned organic tomatoes, has expanded its market into mainstream grocery stores. The "fire roasted" line (whole, diced, crushed, paste, sauce) offers good tomato taste (along the lines of premium Italian brands) with the assurance that the tomatoes were grown without the use of pesticides. Prices are generally a few cents more than nationally advertised brands ($2.49 for a 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes; $1.99 for a 14.5-ounce can of diced tomatoes with no salt — as opposed to $2.39 and $1.49 for national brands).
