Functional food

Functional food or medicinal food is any fresh or processed foodclaimed to have a health-promoting and/or disease-preventing property beyond the basic nutritionalfunction of supplying nutrients, although there is no consensus on an exact definitionof the term.

This is an emerging field in food science, in which such foods are usually accompanied with healthclaimsfor marketingpurposes, such as, "Kelloggcerealis a significant source of fiber. Studieshave shown that an increased amount of fiber in one's diet can decrease the riskof certain types of cancerin individuals."

Functional foods are sometimes called nutraceuticals, a portmanteauof nutrition and pharmaceutical, and can include food that has been genetically modified. The general category includes processed foodmade from functional food ingredients, or fortified with health-promoting additives, like "vitamin-enriched" products, and also, fresh foods (e g vegetables) that have specific claims attached.

The term was first used in Japanin the 1980s, where there is a government approval process for functional foods, called Foods for Specified Health Use(FOSHU). Some countries, like Canada, have specific laws concerning the labelingof such products.

External links

• Journal of Medicinal Food
• Functional Foods: Public Health Boon or 21st Century Quackery?- Summary report by International Association of Consumer Food Organizationsreviews regulatory and marketsituation in Japan, the USand the UK(March 1999)
• Medicinal Food News
• UK Joint Health Claims Initiative
• Agriculture & Agri-Food Canadacs:Funk?ní potraviny

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional+food Wikipedia article Functional food.