All-natural snacks nab national award

Techniques for making healthy and fun-to-eat foods from pears, tomatoes, carrots and other fruits and vegetables have garnered a national honour for a pair of Agricultural Research Service scientists.

Research food technologist Tara H. McHugh of the ARS Western Regional Research Center, Albany, California, and recently retired colleague Charles C. Huxsoll, a former agricultural engineer at Albany, received a 2003 Excellence in Technology Transfer Award earlier this week at the Tucson, Arizona annual meeting of the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer.

McHugh and Huxsoll have used an array of food processing techniques to create new foods made of up to 100 per cent pure fruits or vegetables. That, suggests the ARS, is in contrast to the majority of fruit- or vegetable-based snacks on the market today that typically don't contain as high an amount of pure fruit or vegetable.

The Albany scientists' creations include a soft, chewy pear bar that claims to provide the nutritional value of two fresh pears. The bars are designed to be a convenient snack about the size and shape of a typical energy bar. HR Mtn Sun of Hood River, Oregan, is producing the bars and distributing them through several supermarket and drugstore chains. It is hoped that success of the novel product will boost employment in the region.

In other work, the researchers invented edible wraps that could serve as an environmentally friendly alternative to some of the plastic films used in home and commercial kitchens today. The team says it has already made colorful prototypes from purees of tomatoes, broccoli, apples, apricots and nearly a half-dozen other fruits and vegetables.

One of the aims of the creation of these new foods is to help Americans meet the recommended daily requirement of five to six servings of fruits or vegetables. Currently most Americans consume less than half the recommended total.