The gluten free diet has been growing in popularity in recent years - so much so that food products and flours that don't feature gluten are making as much as $3 billion a year in the U.S.

A large part of this trend can be attributed to a new type of consumer who avoids many forms of carbohydrates to begin with, who avoids gluten for popularly held notions, or who cannot tolerate gluten, like those with celiac disease.

According to the Institute of Food Technologists, this same gluten-free diet is also gaining significant popularity in Europe.

If you're interested in offering a gluten-free food product or line of foods, you'll likely need to focus on your flours (the yummy kind, not the pretty kind).

Rice flours, soy flours, almond flours, potato flours, and just about any flour that doesn't feature wheat or barley can be used in gluten free foods.

Just be sure you know how to create traditional foods with gluten free flours that still taste good, and bake up well. In most cases these flours are more delicate than traditional versions, and should be gently mixed and quickly put in an oven to capitalize on a quick rise.

Gluten free flours also absorb more liquid than traditional flours, and you might need to compensate for that by restructuring your overall recipes.

Finally, don't be afraid to combine different gluten free flours to create the appropriate flavor and texture. Potato flour and rice flour are often mixed in order to approximate a traditional flour recipe, as are soy flour and rice flour.

And with the ability to use rich products like eggs, butter, and milk, it's fairly easy to produce gluten free products that don't sacrifice flavor.

Earlier this year India and Brazil were riding on quite a sugar high. Unfortunately for them, they've crashed back down to Earth, and today's prices aren't looking quite so profitable for the world's largest sugar producers.

In February sugar prices had reached a 17-year-high based on rising demand and poor weather influencing crops in both India and Brazil.

Speculation was rife, but everyone expected that sugar prices would be very high for most of this year.

But India and Brazil's sweet deal was not meant to be. A combination of factors cited at Bloomberg reveal that sugar prices are falling fast.

First, food manufacturers and confectionaries weren't keen on buying sugar at such inflated prices, and the resulting lack of demand drove prices down a bit.

Then, the crop coming out of Brazil and India turned out to be better than expected, revealing that the demand/supply ratio wasn't going to lead to dramatically higher prices.

And now Egypt has canceled an order for 100,000 metric tons of sugar based on an expectation of lower prices.

It's a bitter turn for Brazil and India, as well as those speculators who were betting on rising sugar prices.

But, on the other hand, the future is looking pretty sweet for those same food manufacturers and confectioners who held out for lower wholesale sugar prices. The falling prices for sugar will also be particularly welcome for smaller businesses who were struggling with the rising costs of food and other food ingredients.

As the dietary sodium gets more and more attention from the media, the medical community, and the public, it appears that a "designer salt" may soon be taking the place of table salt and sodium in foods.

At least, that's what PepsiCo is thinking. According to the article about sodium and salts at fastcompany.com, in an effort to reduce the sodium in their foods PepsiCo has created a "designer salt" that will supposedly lower sodium without sacrificing flavor in their foods.

The designer salt contains crystals with a shape and size that slashes the amount of sodium ingested by people when they gobble down potato chips.

Hmmm, sounds a lot like sea salt to us.

You see, sea salt and other fancy salts have been gaining in popularity in recent years particularly because the size of the salt crystal allows for more flavor with less sodium content.

Of course too much salt is too much salt, and consumers pursuing a low sodium diet are advised to minimize salt consumption of any kind. But it's no secret that lower sodium salt combinations and sea salts have been used to add flavor and without negatively effecting health for a few years now.

On top of that sea salt offers a mineral content and unprocessed product that many health-food consumers find appealing.

So, will "designer" salt replace these other alternatives?

It's hard to tell, but for now the popularity of sea salt probably isn't in any danger. It has its own market and chemically produced products probably won't appeal to that demographic, even if they do enjoy gobbling some chips now and then.

When Sweet'n Low hit the market some years back, it provided a new and wonderful option for people who need to avoid sugar for health reasons.

Now, years later, sweeteners are still a hot ticket food item, but a debate continues about which ones taste best and are healthiest to consume.

After Sweet'n Low came Equal, and of course the biggest sweetener to hit the market in recent years has been Splenda.

But as a new wave of health-conscious consumers hit the market, the "natural" sweetener stevia has been gaining attention.

Stevia is derived from a South American plant, and its extract is believed to be between 200 and 300 times sweeter than old fashioned sugar.

NJ.com cites the rising popularity of stevia in their recent article on organic sweeteners vs artificial sweeteners. The author puts stevia to a taste test by baking cookies with regular sugar, stevia, and Splenda.

The result? Most tasters preferred regular sugar, and found both Splenda and Stevia to have an unpleasant aftertaste.

And as traditional granulated sugar regains some of its market share as a replacement for high-fructose corn syrup, does it make any sense for food manufacturers to offer products with stevia?

The answer is, probably. Those people who're going to eat real sugar are going to eat it, but those who don't might want to try stevia because it isn't considered an artificial sweetener.

The popularity of the low-sugar, low-carbohydrate diet is still quite high, and in conjunction with the current trend towards natural sweeteners, stevia might be an option that many consumers would appreciate.

No matter what though, sugar will always be the top choice for consumers and manufacturers alike. After all, good ol' sugar does have just 16 calories per teaspoon.

Last week soy sales hit an 8 year low as news hit that China, America's largest soy purchaser, canceled more than 192,000 tons of product. It's presumed that a record crop of soybeans in South America has led to a reduction in their wholesale prices, leading China to look elsewhere for its product.

So what does this mean for U.S. buyers of soy? Prices will likely be going down, and popularity is definitely up. According to SoyFoods.org, in the last 16 years soy food products have grown from a $300 million dollar-per-year enterprise to a $4 billion dollar enterprise.

And while health fashions seem to wax and wane, soy products are still holding strong. Meat alternatives, soymilk, tofu, and soy-based desserts are still enjoying steady growth thanks to a health-conscious consumer base interested in avoiding higher-fat meat and dairy products.

Finally, a new study released by Duke University finds that soy health benefits are even proving more beneficial than some drugs designed for diabetic individuals. Apparently, a higher intake of soy products was associated with a reduction of type 2 diabetes of as much as 38 percent. This beat standard medications for pre-diabetic people by a mile.

So, if you've been considering adding a soy line to your food manufacturing, or perhaps had been waiting to enhance or advance a current line, this year might offer the best opportunities for offering soy alternatives in your product line.

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This week marked the passing of National Peanut Butter Day, and in honor of one of America's favorite creamy treats, we have a few words to say:

Mainly, "yummy, yummy, and yummy!" ...spread about in a generous creamy swath of yummy.

Peanut butter has become a mainstay of American diet since the early 20th century, when it originally appeared as a means of providing people with a protein that is more easily consumed than meats.

But, according to the Sturgis Article's piece on the history of peanut butter, the Incas were grinding peanuts as far back as 950 B.C!

Smart people, those Incas.

Peanut butter offers us more than delicious PB&Js, heavenly Girl Scout Cookies, and the perfect accompaniment to chocolate. It's high in protein and provides a lot of that "good" fat we're all supposed to be getting more of.

The average American child will eat over 1,500 peanut butter sandwiches by the time they're 18, making this one of the most popular and healthiest ways that kids get protein and good fats in their diet.

And Americans in general eat about 3 pounds of peanut butter per person, each and every year.

So we raise our glass (of milk, of course!) to you, peanut butter. Thanks for providing unbeatable flavor, cost efficient protein and other nutrients, and overall convenience of use to American families for the past 80 years.

While we're at it, we'll also tip our hats to George Washington Carver for his many years of dedicated research on the humble legume the peanut and for helping make peanut butter what it is today.