Nature’s Serving was created to develop tasty, affordable and convenient products made of vegetables using top creative chefs and the best food industry innovation and science.
For the Trade, Nature's Serving Products are easy to distribute and to merchandise, target the biggest food categories and were well received by adults and children in consumer tests. That's because the most important part of Nature’s Serving is that:
One portion of Nature's Serving products always contains a full serving of vegetables, and all the significant nutrients known to science of a full serving of fresh vegetables.
Food safety is paramount. We know the origin of every single ingredient and monitor the hygiene of our transportation, cooking and storage facilities. Our cooking facilities are certified to high quality standards.
Using the official USDA database, we calculate the known nutrients of the tomato, carrot, chicory, onion, parsnip, spinach and broccoli in our serving of vegetables. We make sure that any nutrient in the serving that is a significant part of a person's daily requirement will be in the product anytime during its shelf-life. If some is lost in making our product we make sure to add some of that nutrient back in.
You can see on our nutrition facts on the back of the package that our slices and crisps have a good array of nutrients. But we don't put in too much. Many experts believe that we should not "over-use" nutrients. The most important ingredient of the product is vegetables.
We don't make claims that are unsupported by sound science and the Food and Drug Administration. Our only claim is:
Rui Hai Liu, an associate professor of food science at Cornell University, writes: "Cooking is crucial to our diets. It helps us digest food without expending huge amounts of energy. It softens food, such as cellulose fiber and raw meat, that our small teeth, weak jaws and digestive systems aren't equipped to handle."
"Cooked carrots, spinach, mushrooms, asparagus, cabbage, peppers and many other vegetables also supply more antioxidants, such as carotenoids and ferulic acid, to the body than they do when raw.."
"The bottom line...is to eat your veggies and fruits no matter how they're prepared. We cook them so they taste better...And that's the whole idea."
Even so, at Nature's Serving, we treat our vegetables gently. We use lower temperatures to make our products than the temperatures used to bake whole wheat bread.
"In addition to apparently supplying you with more absorbable beta-carotene, cooked veggies give your body more of certain other antioxidants, such as lutein (which is good for your eyes) and lycopene (which helps protect your heart and your bones)."
"Cooked vegetables can also give you more minerals. Heating releases bound calcium, making more of the mineral available for the body to absorb. And the difference can be significant. Cooked spinach has 245 mg/cup of calcium, while raw spinach only has 30 mg/cup!"