Perfect for sweetening up your breakfast, black currant preserves are often spread on toast and offer a combination of sweet and sharp taste. Black currants are also used in a variety of dessert treats, sauces and dippings.  In addition, black currant is an ingredient in Guinness beer, and some beer aficionados assert that it adds a superior note to the flavor.

These robust black berries are versatile, and full of antioxidants. Black currants contain natural monoamine oxidase inhibitors, and therefore, consuming them regularly in food or dietary supplement form, may be beneficial for your health.

Black currants are rich in antioxidants, notably vitamin C as well as in the essential fatty acid gamma-linoleic acid (omega 6) and even minerals such as potassium. In fact, black currants contain twice the amount of potassium as bananas, four times the vitamin C of oranges, and twice the antioxidants of blueberries.

Besides vitamin C, key antioxidants in black currants are anthocyanins, which are carotenoids: a carotenoid is an antioxidant that also gives the fruit and vegetable its distinctive color. Anthocyanins in black currant have been rather extensively researched for several health-supporting properties. For example, they have been shown to promote healthy inflammatory response by inhibiting activity of inflammatory enzymes called cyclo-oxygenase 1 and cyclo-oxygenase 2.

Black currant juice is abundant in proanthocyanidins, anthocyanins and cassis polysaccharide, which has been shown to stimulate the activity of macrophages, which are cells that engulf and digest debris and invading microorganisms, and thus help keep the body in top shape when fighting against rogue cells.

The good news is that the dietary supplement industry offers black currant supplements in tablets, capsules, or juice that make getting these daily benefits much easier than eating servings of this berry every single day.

Black currants are not well known since they were banned in the United States in the early 1900s, but since then the ban has been lifted in many states.  And there remains a strong potential for black currant applications in food, beverages, or dietary supplements in the U.S. market.

For more information about black currants, you can visit The Currant Company at www.currantc.com.

Or read an article about black currants in a NY Times article, “A Tart Berry Reintroduces Itself”.

The expression to describe an abundance of something – “more than Carter has pills” — reflects a once very popular product called Carter’s Little Liver Pills, an early dietary supplement to promote liver health. Launched by Dr. Samuel Carter in 1868 to “positively cure … sick headache and torpid liver” this was the ancestor of the modern condition-specific supplements available today, but prior to FDA/FTC rules that prohibit a dietary supplement made with nature’s ingredients to make such outright health claims.

In the intervening years since 1868, the multivitamin became the dominant supplement, the must-have to start a healthy day. Also, prior to DSHEA in 1994, many dietary supplements were individualized – individual vitamins, minerals, herbs.

Since the successful advent of DSHEA, manufacturers with help from ingredient suppliers and formulators were able to start manufacturing multi-ingredient formulas that support the structure and function of a system or organ in the human body. These formulas did something amazing:  they made it easy for any consumer to shop for what was (and remains) most appropriate and desirable for him or her. These condition-specific formulas took away much of the intimidation factor.

In fact, the industry research publication, Nutrition Business Journal, has reported, “Supplement and ingredient firms remain committed to health condition-specific products, which accounted for 92% of U.S. supplement sales in 2007.”

In 2006, Packaged Facts concluded in its report, “Nutritional Supplements in the U.S.” that condition-specific supplements lead overall sales, because consumers tend to seek out those with labels clearly communicating intended benefit of use. In 2005, Packaged Facts reported that condition-specific products accounted for a large proportion of new product introductions which rose by 33 percent that year.

The communications and collaborations between nutritional ingredient manufacturers and their brand marketing partners have never been as strong, exciting and cutting-edge as it is today in launching new condition-specific supplements and refining older formulas based on new research evidence. Consumers are more excited than ever because they have adapted to using condition-specific supplements as a long-term tool or as part of a healthy lifestyle.

Armed with this knowledge, many ingredient suppliers continue to search through peer-reviewed journals to validate safety, efficacy and mechanism of action of their ingredients. As one example, D-Chiro-Inositol, which has been found to have a positive impact for ovarian health and to help support healthy blood sugar as well.

Given the sheer popularity of condition-specific supplement formulas on the market, the dietary supplement industry’s future is secured as a reliable means to nourish health, in a personalized and easy way.