I purchased one of your heart healthy foods at my local Costco store last week. As I was eating your slightly sweet, cinnamon flavored cardboard oat triangles I noticed the following claim: "Foods containing at least 0.4g per serving of plant sterols, eaten twice a day with meals for a daily total intake of at least 0.8g, as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart disease." Does this statement really mean that you can label your Sweet Churros Dulce tortilla chips with the claim that they are "proven to help lower cholesterol"? I don't even know what a plant sterol is but I'm sure that if I eat this whole Costco sized bag (the recommend amount) of chips over the next week I won't be doing my cholesterol, or any other part of me, any favors...even if I do eat them with a meal. I did not purchase your chips to reduce my cholesterol. In fact, I bought them to stop the cravings for the actual churro I could buy on my way out of the store.
I am sure you have a fabulous marketing team that is doing their best to sell the most of your tasty chips. I feel sorry for the consumer that relies on your products to lower their cholesterol, or even thinks that eating them are good for their health. Maybe your team could come up with a nicer way to say, "eating our chips are better for you than Doritos". Yes, you have all natural ingredients and I commend you for that. Please don't insult our intelligence and make claims that really have no merit.
Sincerely,
H
PS. I would like to understand the graph and study you did when testing your chips. Did you just simply lay some plant sterols chips on top of a Human Plasma Lipid, submerse them, or what?
6 comments:
Well, believe it or not, plant sterols are recommended by National Institutes of Health, FDA, American College of Cardiology, Harvard Medical School, Mayo Clinic and many others. Sterols can reduced LDL (bad) cholesterol by an average of 10-15% when taken in amount of 2grams per day (the .4/.8 grams are the minimum amounts needed to make the health claim, but the NIH defines 2g as the therapeutic target).
For those of us really interested in lowering cholesterol naturally, sterols are one type of nutrient. Soluble fiber, certain forms of niacin, monusaturated fats in place of saturated fats, and fish oils are the other critical nutrients serving to lower to levels cholesterol (both dietary and the body-manufactured types). Again, the key here is to get sufficient levels of each of these nutrients, each and every day.
So, you are right when you suggest that eating a bag of chips might not be the best way (i.e. calorie-mindful) to get sterols and some fiber; yet, as part of a broader approach that incorporates other foods and supplements delivering the key nutrients, many people may find a serving of Corazonas a useful addition.
We (kardea nutrition) have no connection with Corazonas. We formulate and market a range of other products. Here at Kardea Nutrition, we do emphasize consumer education to advance a more natural approach to cholesterol management. Kardea Nutrition enables natural cholesterol management with great tasting foods and supplements that deliver scientifically-valdidated cholesterol-managing nutrients. www.kardeanutrition.com for the science. www.kardeagourmet for some cholesterol-lowering cooking/eating tips.
So, uh, H... How do you know this Rob guy? Not the kind of comment you expected no doubt. It made me laugh to see it.
Perhaps you could hook up with Rob sometime. He seems very willing to help you on a natural journey to manage your cholesterol. :)
I'm picking my way through this book Scott's dad lent us by this guy who claims that every disease is curable through natural treatments. He's 72 and supposedly the 40ish looking guy on the cover is him. I'm not sure what to make of it yet. He says a lot of stuff I already believe and agree with, but then he goes on and makes a lot of conspiracy oriented claims about pharmaceutical companies trying to keep people sick, no actual money ever actually going to cancer research, yada, yada, yada. And he goes on and on about how every company, and in particular publicly traded companies with stockholders to please, and even more specifically publicly traded big brand food conglomerates with stockholders to please care absolutely nothing about your cholesterol level. They just want your money and will say anything to get it while producing the lowest quality product they can possibly get away with. You would probably be all over this book. But it's pretty bleak.
Hi H (and everyone else) - my name is Joe and I'm in Marketing at Corazonas. Yes I'm a real person :) You can even put a face to the name here http://corazonas.com/who_makes_em/about_us.html
I'm delighted you bought a bag of our Churros chips; when we developed those last fall we thought they were pretty awesome so hopefully you liked them too!
I can understand the skepticism around our 'Proven to Lower Cholesterol' claim. I just got back from a trade show in Anaheim with 30,000 of my 'closest friends' (Natural Product Expo) and got the same reaction from several people. "no way!" But I assure you it's true. The studies you asked about were conducted by Brandeis University with enough scientific rigor to allow us to make that claim. The news release can be found here http://my.brandeis.edu/news/item?news_item_id=103499
Plant Sterols, in fact have enough scientific testing and positive results that the package language you mentioned (Foods containing at least 0.4g per serving of plant sterols, eaten twice a day with meals for a daily total intake of at least 0.8g, as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart disease) is also FDA approved. And let me tell you, the FDA does not hand out the ability to make claims like this lightly.
We use ADM's CardioAid Plant Sterols. You can find more info here
http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/news/ng.asp?id=65577-adm-phytosterols-cardioaid-cholesterol
and here
http://www.admworld.com/naen/mktcol/nutrition.asp
And if you'd like to learn more about the health benefits of plant sterols, a quick google search will turn up lots of good stuff. Here's a couple links to get you started.
http://www.pritikin.com/benefits/cholesterol/cholesterol_HighLdl.shtml
http://www.ific.org/publications/factsheets/sterolfs.cfm
I really appreciate you picking up our chips and I hope you'll buy them again. Its funny that you said "eating our chips are better for you than Doritos" because that's sort of how we think of it too - a chip that's good for you but also tastes great. You're absolutely right - it'd be irresponsible (and probably pretty gross) to sit down and eat a whole bag of them in a sitting. Clearly there is a law of diminishing returns to be adhered to, and anything good for you in moderation will be unhealthy in excess. We love to snack and we love showing people that there is a healthier option that doesn't compromise on taste!
We really appreciate your business; we're a small startup company (almost 2 years old!) and feedback from our customers really makes a huge difference to us!
Feel free to check us out; we have a blog too at http://corazonas.blogspot.com/ As you can see the latest post is mine; in the last year I lowered my LDL -8%. I've been working at Corazonas for almost that entire time. Coincidence? ;)
Thanks for letting me post here! Cheers
- Joe B
Are you kidding me? Who's pulling your chain? Who are these guys? A
Please see the next post for an apology to Corazonas. These guys really do know what they're doing and seem to be running a decent kind of business. If you like Doritos try their Salsa Picante chips for a heart-healthy alternative, they are tasty!
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