New offerings promise to satisfy the sweet tooth and provide essential vitamins and nutrients, but do so-called ‘functional candies’ do more harm than good?

By BEV BENNETT
CTW Features

Chocolate disks with more calcium than a glass of milk; chewing gum that helps prevent tooth decay and gummi candies with vitamin C. Is this an alternative universe where everything you thought was bad is actually good for you?

Not quite, but snacks and candies made with “good for you” ingredients are the latest bid from manufacturers to catch your attention. You’ve probably seen orange juice with added calcium or cereal with added vitamins, both functional foods designed to provide a positive effect on your health.

“The functional foods market is growing and will continue to grow because of the increasing baby boomer population,” says Joan Selge Blake, a clinical associate professor at Boston University. “We want to live longer and better than our parents.”

Now you’re not just seeing health-enhancing ingredients in foods you should eat, you’re seeing the trend in treats as well. Although chocolates are one of the most popular vehicles to deliver nutrients, chips made with high-fiber multi-grains or high-protein soy and antioxidant green tea in candies are also coming to your supermarket shelf.

But are there drawbacks to relying on a chocolate bar to provide omega-3 fatty acids, which are associated with reduced coronary disease, or calcium for bone density, instead of a can of sardines?

That’s the concern of nutrition experts who recommend you weigh the health claims of sweets to see how they measure up against foods you should be eating, including fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, fish and lean meats. Candies and snacks, even with beneficial ingredients, shouldn’t take the place of wholesome foods, say the experts. Adding high-calorie snacks to your diet won’t benefit your health.

“There are some wonderful benefits to adding substances to food, such as sterols in margarine [to lower your cholesterol]. Does it make chocolate with omega-3 fatty acids a wonder food? The public has to understand that omega-3s won’t wash away calories,” says Blake, also a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association.

Moreover, health professionals don’t know whether substances that have some efficacy in their original state have the same properties when added to snack foods.

“We know that soy helps reduce the risk of cancer. Do we know soy is good for you in chocolate?” says Timothy S. Harlan, M.D, associate clinical professor of medicine at Tulane University, New Orleans. “No. From my standpoint, good foods, such as omega-3 fatty acids in fish, are fine. I don’t know whether omega-3 is good in chocolate.”

For Jenna Wunder, whole foods are preferable to fortified snacks.

“If it were up to me, people would get their nutrients from whole foods,” says Wunder, MPH and registered dietitian with the University of Michigan Department of Integrative Medicine, Ann Arbor. But if she were to recommend an enriched chocolate it would be one with added calcium.

This doesn’t mean you have to forgo sweets, even those with functional ingredients, but you need to weigh candy's calories against your dietary needs, says Blake.

“We can all fit a small piece of chocolate into the diet, but don’t use it to displace real food.”