CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — For a truly distasteful treat, it's hard to top Colleen Zammer's orange ice cream. It starts off sweet as a summer day -- then wallops the tongue with a taste like rancid fish, so strong you can almost smell the fins and scales.
Then again, Zammer's smoothies can be pretty bad too: all liquid on top, with globs of protein at the bottom. And how about the simple butter cookie? Hers taste as if they were baked under the hood of a diesel truck.
It's a snack-food house of horrors in Zammer's industrial kitchen, a place where foods are taken apart, outfitted with new ingredients and pieced back together. Zammer may cut the carbs. Or swap one type of fat for another. Or mix in flavorings, nutrients or other additives.
The goal is to rebuild foods so that they are "healthier," with less to clog the arteries or lard the waistline. But Zammer, a consultant to the processed-food industry, sometimes turns the foods into foul-tasting Frankensteins, as well. Despite decades of work, she and other food scientists are still grappling with how to boost the nutritional value of snacks and other fare without mangling the taste.
The effort is called food reformulation, and it is taking a central role in the nation's battle against obesity and heart disease. Snack giant Kraft Foods is trying to remake its legendary Oreo cookie with less sugar and fat and fewer calories. Kellogg says it may cut fat from its Keebler cookies.
And a variety of other food companies, from McDonald's to Frito-Lay, have been scrambling to find replacements for trans fats, considered a public menace by many nutritionists. Trans fats have no more calories than other fats but are thought to be particularly hard on the arteries.
Accused of fattening their profits by fattening the nation, the food giants want to show that they are taking health concerns seriously. With two-thirds of Americans considered overweight or obese, reformulation is part of the industry's response to lawmakers, nutritionists and trial lawyers who say food companies deserve a super-size portion of the blame.
Some of the industry's biggest critics say reformulating certain foods could improve public health.
"In some cases it can make a big difference, changing a cookie from one that clogs the arteries to one that doesn't," said Margo Wootan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington consumer advocacy group that tracks nutrition issues. "It's a way to eat healthier that's about as easy as it gets, because you keep eating the same foods as before. They just won't be as bad for you."
