"The Alar-in-apples controversy has been fantastic for us," said Patricia Heydlauff, National Nutritional Foods Assn.'s executive director. "Our members have always sold organic apples and other organic produce. We've also been selling food without artificial additives or preservatives for years."

"The nice thing about our business is that most of the food tastes pretty good. It didn't several years ago," Ian J. Goldmunz, Whole Foods advertising sales manager, said in a speech to the convention.

The National Nutritional Foods Assn. also announced at the convention that it will urge its 3,500 members to regularly donate food and health products to hunger relief agencies. Among those who said they will make contributions to Second Harvest, a national food banking system, were General Nutrition Centers, Alta-Dena Certified Dairy and Health Valley Foods Co.