Optimized Nutri-Score – with beta-glucan from oats

Consumers want to do more than just fight off symptoms; they also want to achieve greater long-term health by having a healthy lifestyle and a balanced diet. This creates the opportunity to develop new plant-based product innovations with appetizing textures that preventively maintain the health of consumers.

In the westernized world, food-related diseases such as adiposity, heart disease, and diabetes mellitus are occurring with increasing frequency. Consumers and patients are focusing more heavily on having a healthy lifestyle with a balanced diet so that they can prevent these diseases rather than having to treat them medically.

For a large proportion of consumers, the factor “convenience” is highly important. Consumers want to eat healthy and tasty foods without having to put in much effort to prepare them. This reinforces the market for new, healthy foods that are quick and easy to prepare, but are still healthier than the conventional highly processed convenience foods.

Beta-glucan has been scientifically proven to lower cholesterol levels by actively absorbing gallic acid and bile salts in the gut and flushing them out. Lowering cholesterol levels lowers the risk of heart disease. For foods that contain at least 1 g of beta-glucans per portion, one can make the health claim “Beta-glucans help to maintain normal cholesterol levels in the blood”.

If at least 4 g of beta-glucan from oats or barley are contained per 30 g of available carbohydrates per portion, one can make the health claim “Taking in beta-glucans from oats or barley with food helps prevent blood sugar levels from spiking after a meal”. This can be covered easily, for example, by two pieces of bread or one portion of pasta.