HARTFORD COURANT
Published April 13, 2024 | 
Not in the mood for hot cereal? How about Harmony, a crunchy cereal designed for women? You can pour on the cereal Great Awakenings, a soy-milk product marketed for women. Later, pull out a Luna bar, an energy bar for women.
Or have a Heart and Soy muffin, a muffin for women.
What’s going on here? When did food get linked to the second X chromosome?
Sometime in 1999 is the best answer, but the trend is only growing. The Mintel global database of new products lists “women’s nutritionally designed foods” as a top trend for 2001, predicting that soups and bottled waters will follow.
What most of these products have in common is a kind of Holy Trinity - plus one or two - of the nutrients that have been identified as healthful for women, but often lacking in their diets. Soy, calcium, folic acid and iron are ubiquitous, often linked with B vitamins, omega 3 fatty acids, flax seed or oats.
“Women are not meeting their nutritional needs,” says Cathy Kapica, director of nutrition education for Quaker Oats, “whether they’re too busy with their lives or too busy to cook for themselves.”
The successful energy bar Clif got a sister, Luna, in mid-1999. “We were hearing from women consumers that there were a lot of energy bars but nothing particular to women,” says Dean Mayer, communications manager at the Berkeley, Calif., company.
One gripe from women was - no surprise here - that energy bars had too many calories. So Clif developed the Luna with 170 to 180 calories, compared with the standard 240 to 250. Mayer says the Luna has 23 nutrients. It has rocketed in 18 months to the No. 1 energy-bar brand in natural-food stores.
Not only the big boys are offering products. Tori Stuart started her Newton, Mass., company Zoe Foods when she saw her mother suffering through perimenopause. She believes her Flax and Soy Granola is a natural alternative to hormone-replacement therapy.
The cereal, which offers 1 tablespoon flax and5 gramsof soy in each 2/3-cup serving (Harmony and the Quaker product each offer2 gramsof soy), is in 300 stores nationwide. Stuart plans to come out with bars in March.