Functional Foods

Functional foods have been gaining popularity these past few years.  Functional foods, defined by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, including whole foods and fortified, enriched, or enhanced foods have a potentionally beneficial effect on health when consumed as part of a varied diet on a regular basis, at effective levels.

Functional foods have also been defined as foods where new ingredients have been added to a food and the new product has an additiional function, one related to health promotion or disease prevention. 

There are many reasons behind the increasing demand of functional foods: rising healthcare costs and scientific research linking food diet to lower incidence of chronic disease.

Functional foods are a seemingly good idea, with one exception.  The FDA does not recognize functional foods as an actual food category and the term "functional foods" has no legal meaning in the United States.

Health claims, like the ones displayed on functional foods, are being better regulated with the awareness of manufacturers using false claims to increase sales of their product.  For example, a food that has cherry flavoring claims to have antioxidants that fight cancer, when really it is in a minute amount that will most likely not bring the same health benefits as a whole cherry.  You need to be on your guard for these kinds of claims that exaggerate a health benefit.  And if a food product says it will cure you of a disease, it is probably false.

An easy way to avoid false functional claims is to select the whole, fresh foods over their processed versions.  Read labels and look at ingredients.  And always check the research.  If there is significant research proving a health claim to be true, then that is most likely a true functional food.  Functional foods are great in that they add nutrients to our foods.  You just have to be a well-informed shopper and be weary of those health claims that seem too good to be true.