All Natural Breath Bites for a Fresh Mouth
Saturday, September 17th, 2005All natural breath bites made of pure herbs is the safest way to go for a fresh mouth.
If you were the CEO of a large food conglomerate, and if you wanted to design and manufacture the ideal breath freshener, what would you choose? For a zesty flavor, a blend of natural and artificial ones will make a nice balance of taste and economy. For a gooey center you use vegetable oil. To keep it from sticking to your filling machines, you use a little FDA-approved mineral oil. Sweet things have the most appeal to humans, but sugar is avoided by health-conscious consumers, so use sucralose and neotame (8,000 times sweeter than sugar). Finally, a soft gelatin capsule with a smooth coat of carnauba wax, colored with an eye-catching mix of blue #1 and red #40, and you have a sure winner in the marketplace. The flashy package is probably the most expensive ingredient, but at $1.99 (retail) you will easily hit your profit target. 1
Proudly you go home with the first package off the assembly line and tell your family, “Look what’s going to make us some money.” Your family is impressed and proud of you. Your five-year-old daughter says, “Can I try one, please?” “Oh, no,” you tell her, “too many possibly dangerous chemicals for you!” “You aren’t going to sell them to children?” she asks. “Yes, they’re for everyone,” you tell her. “Except me?” she asks. “Why?”
You explain that just because certain chemicals are legal, it doesn’t make them good, and it doesn’t make them healthful, and it doesn’t guarantee further studies won’t find them unsafe. “Then why did you use them to make these great looking pills?” your daughter wonders.
You explain about the competitive marketplace and the gross margin and how it’s quite possible that all the chemicals used will continue to be found safe in the long run. “Or at least until the CEO who succeeds me signs off on my retirement package,” you mutter softly.
Now again pretend you are that CEO wishing to design and market the ideal breath freshener, only this time your primary concern is to come up with a formula that you wouldn’t mind if your five-year-old daughter ate a whole container of.
It suddenly occurred to me that some of the botanicals we sell would be perfect. Like cinnamon. One pinch and your mouth wakes up like your daughter on Christmas morning. Plus there’s no doubt cinnamon is safe because humans have been using cinnamon in their food, with no adverse affects, for centuries. And it may even be good for you! Studies have shown cinnamon appears to push down both triglycerides and cholesterol, and also boosts insulin’s effect so diabetics need less. 2
So we put pure cinnamon, no sugar, no coloring, in small gelatin capsules for quick mouth freshening. Usually you try to swallow capsules and avoid bad-tasting contents, but in this case, you crunch up the capsule and pow! It hits you like opening your daughter’s first straight-A report card!
I think cinnamon tastes the best, but a close second is spearmint. Others include peppermint, fennel, cardamom, cloves, coriander and anise. They cost $1.95 each. I hope you find a Breath Bite you like. My daughter is not five, she’s ten, but I’m glad I don’t have to worry about how many Breath Bites she eats. After all, she’s my retirement package.
More Good Stuff
In addition to Breath Bites, we are working on other safe and healthy personal products. Watch for them in our new Pearl packaging. Check with us next time you order!
1 Ingredients listed on Cool Mint Ice Breakers, Hershey Foods Corporation, purchased September, 2005.
2 Using cinnamon for health benefits, San Diego Union Tribune, August 9, 2005, p E2.