Digestive Advantage Muffins?

I've been writing for the past couple of years about functional foods, foods that have probiotics - beneficial bacteria - added to them in order to create supposedly healthier foods.

And I've been writing for years about Ganeden, the maker of Digestive Advantage, a probiotic pill taken by many of us who are lactose intolerant.

I suppose I should have foreseen that the two would intersect at some point.

Still, it took me by surprise when I saw this article by Mary Vanac of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

A company in Mayfield Heights is marketing a probiotic that might help the health trend already accepted in Europe and Asia catch on in America.

It's selling its healthy bacteria as a food ingredient -- one that unlike most other probiotics remains effective even when it's baked, boiled, frozen or squeezed.

The company, Ganeden Biotech, has teamed with two dozen food companies since January to incorporate its probiotic in everything from muffins to health bars to energy drinks -- even ice cream.

Main Street Gourmet in Akron recently began adding GanedenBC30 to the raisin bran muffins in its Isabella's Healthy Bakery line under the label Activate: Probiotic Enriched Muffins.

You can't buy these muffins in Ohio yet. But foods with the GanedenBC30 logo could start hitting the shelves of local grocery and drug stores by early next year. ...

That's where Ganeden may have a leg up on many of its competitors. The company's patented strain of Bacillus Coagulans -- GanedenBC30 -- generally survives processing and digestion, and is stable in items on store shelves for up to two years.

So instead of drinking a few ounces of probiotic-rich Yakult dairy beverage every morning like Japanese people do, Americans soon may be able to get their daily dose of probiotics in breakfast cereal.

Yes, the not being available yet in stores part is disappointing. I'll keep following the story and let you know when and where they do appear.