Super-natural circus

Strolling past denture adhesives, various types of organ cleansers and metabolic activators, I have pretty much lost all sense of direction when I stumble onto something promising: chocolate. I stop to sample delicate little nibs of Wei of Chocolate's organic fair-trade confection (with mood enhancing chai herbs and spices) while a young woman with a Mona Lisa smile sprays the top of my head with Lotus Wei's Blissful Mind, a mist infused with vibrational flower essences (designed to clear cellphone and computer radiation).

The pitches from vendors come fast and furious. Back in the Hot Products Hall, standing in a crush of people, I am approached by an immaculately dressed older gentleman who asks, with intensity, if I've ever considered organic tampons and pads.

The growing popularity of all of these products is reflected in sales at natural foods grocery stores, says Lara Christenson, director of natural products research for SPINS, a market research and consulting firm for the natural products industry.

According to the Natural Foods Merchandiser's Market Overview 2007, sales of U.S. natural products grew 9.7% in 2006, to $56.8 billion.

"We're seeing a tremendous number of new ingredients coming on," Christenson says.

Moving off the grocery shelves are probiotics; nondairy, nonsoy milks such as oat, nut and hemp milk; agave sweeteners; and, of course, exotic fruits.

"Acai is probably the most established," Christenson says. "Mangosteen is an up-and-comer. Pomegranate and some of the traditional fruits, blueberries and cranberries are still very strong."

Indeed, as the day winds down, I start to worry that the human body may not be adequately engineered to sample every product ever produced in the rain forest, and I am mulling the possible medical implications, good and bad, of consuming so many of them in one sitting. What, exactly, does one tell the paramedics in a case such as this? It may have been the acai colon cleanser, but then again, the yerba mate frappuccino looked dicey.

Many of these health food trends are moving so fast that science hasn't had a chance to catch up, says Joy Dubost, a food scientist and nutrition expert for the Institute of Food Technologists.

"With these exotic fruits, we have emerging evidence to indicate their function, but not in human populations, per se," she says. "The evidence is emerging, and we're strongly investigating."