New Concept Development of a Blood Glucose-Balancing Functional Beverage

Abstract

Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) have known to be one of the most common degenerative diseases which highly correlate with lifestyle, including consumption habits. It cannot be denied that the availability and accessibility to high processed food, high in carbohydrates play an important role on increasing the risk of T2DM. On the contrary, consumers’ awareness towards health and nutrition are also rising. These situations open the opportunity for food industries to develop more functional products which can give additional benefits and fulfil the consumers’ needs.
Categorized as ‘supplementary drink’ in the U.S. market, Good Idea® came as a functional beverage with its blood-sugar regulating effect from the amino acids and chromium combination. A line extension was aimed to be done based on the existing product which were the flavoured sparkling water with the addition of amino acids and chromium. Natural ingredients were aimed to be introduced as the new concept of ‘infused Good Idea®’ which sourced from fruits, specifically by utilising Nordic berries.
Combinations of berries and some other fruits were tried during the development process, including some different types of fruit sources. At the end, fruit juice concentrate (FJC) was chosen as the fruit source which suited to most with the carbonated premix-base. Various fruits: mango, apple, cloudberry, blackcurrant, cranberry, sea buckthorn, lingonberry were evaluated to create the new fruit combination for the line extension. However, combination of apple, cloudberry, blackcurrant, and cranberry became the main fruit combination with addition of flavouring agent to sharpen the product character.
Some issues were identified on the development stage, such as unwanted stable foam formation, unpleasant colour, and acidity (sourness) level. These issues were then evaluated and solutions were provided. Since blackcurrant were identified as the cause of the unwanted stable foam formation, adjustment on the formula of the drink was done. Following the foam reduction, colour and acidity were also improved by adjusting the FJC combination on the formula which resulted on two final formulae with pH <3.90. Both formulas were evaluated based on the sensory properties through a focus group discussion (FGD) and hedonic sensory evaluation.
The product is aimed to be packed in cans with 355mL volume. Additionally, tunnel pasteurization 70°C for 30 minutes was decided as the heat treatment method as it was done on the existing product line. In this case, the effect of heat treatment was investigated towards some properties, such as colour and vitamin C content. The result shows that heat treatment produces a darker product due to anthocyanin degradation and non-enzymatic browning. Further, around 32-35% reduction of initial vitamin C were obtained as the impact of heat treatment. As a part of analysis, antioxidant capacity was investigated based on DPPH antioxidant capacity method. This method showed that all of the developed formulae have rather high potential antioxidant capacity, comparable with orange. High content of phenolic compounds on the berries might be the reason behind this result.
The new approach of meal study by using continuous glucose monitoring is quite promising and can be considered as an alternative from the traditional meal study. However, no firm conclusion can be drawn from the study due to some limitation, including the small number of research subjects. In this case, no significant difference was found on all of the incremental area under the curve (iAUC) within 0-120 minutes on all types of drinks with three different meals.

Popular Abstract

For many years, type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) has been one of the most common degenerative diseases. In addition, the prevalence is constantly increasing not only among the older people, but also in the younger generation. This fact is highly connected with the lifestyle and dietary habits, including the high consumption of refined carbohydrate which is more available on the market. In this case, a healthy diet, combined with regular exercise can be the alternative to prevent the development of T2DM.
Interestingly, the trend on healthy and nutritious food consumption is also constantly growing. It has a positive impact on the growth of functional food market with food products that offer some additional benefit beyond its nutritional value. Further, innovation on functional food is not only fulfilling the arising demand, but also offers more option on healthier products in the market.
Functional beverages can be considered as one of the most popular categories of functional foods. One example is Good Idea that is a sparkling water with addition of five essential amino acids and chromium picolinate and the aim to reduce the rise of blood glucose after a carbohydrate-rich meal. Under the claim ‘may help those with normal blood sugar levels handle the sugar spike following a meal’, Good Idea wish to support and facilitate consumers effort to adopt a healthier lifestyle.
In order to cope with various market needs, continuous development of product varieties is important. This project focuses on a line extension of Good Idea. In order to get a natural addition of more nutrients to the product, infusing juice from Nordic berries to the recipe of Good Idea drink was targeted as the new product line. Several challenges are however associated with such a project. Not only should the original taste and nutritional values be fulfilled, but the additional benefits should be achieved at the same time. Utilization of fruit ingredients with the ambition to create a clean labelled-product, the challenges around formulation and the processing operation was the core of this thesis work. Additionally, a preliminary verification of the blood glucose balancing effect in a pilot human study was also done by using CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitoring).
Combination of apple, cloudberry, blackcurrant, and cranberry were chosen to be the main fruit components on the developed formulas. The result of the study shows a promising product character both from sensory and nutritional point of view. Although some reduction of vitamin C and changes on the colour upon heat treatment cannot be avoided, vitamin C and antioxidant properties from the fruits were found to be potential as additional benefits on top of the blood sugar regulating properties of the existing Good Idea drink. Moreover, through a focus group discussion and sensory evaluation, the developed formulas were all acceptable. Thus, this product concept and development have a great potential to put into account.

• author: Ernesta, Fiona
• supervisor: Federico Gomez; Elin Östman
• organization: Food Technology and Nutrition (M.Sc.)
• course: KLTM01 20211
• year: 2021
• type: H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
• subject: Technology and Engineering
• keywords: nordic berries, blood-glucose, functional beverage, food engineering
• language: English
• id: 9055380
• date added to LUP: 2021-06-29 11:37:58
• date last changed: 2022-06-10 03:42:07