Food is the source of vitamins and minerals consumed as cell substrates for energy, cell differentiation, and proliferation.
It maintains, supports, and provides benefits to the human body.
A Food in which a component has been removed or modified by enzymatic, chemical, or technological means to provide benefits.
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What are Functional Foods?
- In the 1980s (Japan), the Ministry of Health and Welfare started the concept of functional foods and then progressed to North America and other markets.
- The first concept of Foods for Specified Health Use (FOSHU) was established in 1991. The demand for functional food is increasing because of its health benefits and profitable business.
- According to the definition by IFIC, functional foods are foods or dietary components that may provide a health benefit beyond basic nutrition.
- According to Health Canada, functional foods are similar in appearance to conventional food, consumed as part of the usual diet, with demonstrated physiological benefits and to reduce the risk of chronic disease beyond basic nutritional functions.
- According to generally accepted definitions, Functional foods include whole foods and fortified, enriched, or enhanced foods or dietary components that control and reduce the risk of chronic disease. It aims to provide physiological health benefits beyond the traditional nutrients they contain. It applies as a part of the daily diet. It also includes vitamin-enriched products.
- Functional foods, natural or processed foods, are foods that have potential benefits for health. It contains known or unknown biologically active compounds that improve human health and reduce diseases, such as dyslipidemia, cancer, type-2 diabetes, stroke, and cardiovascular disease (CVD).
- They are commonly known as nutraceuticals, medical foods, probiotics, pharmafoods, vitafoods, and designer foods that are gaining the most popularity worldwide.
- Examples are beans, berries, cruciferous vegetables, herbs, green tea, nuts, chocolate, citrus fruits, pumpkin, fish, soy, spinach, sweet potatoes, tea, tomatoes, nuts, whole grains, and yogurt.
- Recently, the developments of functional foods include fortified foods with vitamins and/or minerals, such as Vitamin C, Vitamin E, folic acid, iron, and calcium. The development of functional foods is foods fortified with various micronutrients such as omega-3 fatty acids, phytosterol, and soluble fiber. It helps to promote good health and prevent diseases. Functional food products have been utilized in the dairy, confectionery soft drinks, bakery, and baby food markets.
Classification of functional foods
According to the International Life Sciences Institute, food plays three crucial roles in the human body.
- The first role is to supply nutrition to the body for daily functions such as growth and development.
- The second role is to provide food satisfaction, such as tastes, looks, and smells, and improve well-being.
- The third role is to control bodily physiological processes by substances other than the primary nutrients present in food.
Types of Functional Foods
There are five types of functional foods such as:
- Conventional Foods as a functional food
- Fortified and enriched food as a functional food
- Dietary supplements
- Altered products
- Enhanced commodities
1. Conventional Foods
- Conventional food as a functional food is a food that is inherently functional and contains naturally present components.
- Examples are apples, broccoli, soy, fish, and so on.
2. Fortified and enriched food
- Fortified food as a functional food is a functional food to which functional components or nutrients are added.
- Food fortification means adding fortified micronutrients to food. Examples are adding fortified nutrients (vitamin C) to fruit juices.
- Enriched food as a functional food is a functional food in which new nutrients or components are added that are not naturally present in food.
- Examples are margarine enriched with plant sterol, ester, probiotics, and prebiotics.
3. Dietary supplements
- Dietary supplements as a functional food is a legally functional food.
- Products are available in pill, tablet, capsule, powder, or liquid form, implemented as dietary supplements containing one or more specific functional dietary constituents.
4. Altered products
- The removal of harmful substances and replaced with other beneficial substances is known as altered products.
- Examples are fibers as fat releasers in meat or ice cream products.
5. Enhanced commodities
- Food-containing components are enhanced naturally through special growing conditions such as new feed composition, genetic manipulation, etc.
- Examples are eggs enhanced with increased omega-3 content achieved by altered chicken feed.
Product developments of functional foods
- Cereals as functional foods
- Legumes as functional foods
- Vegetables as functional foods
- Fruits as functional foods
- Probiotics as functional foods
- Prebiotics as functional foods
- Functional drinks
- Functional Bakery Products
- Functional eggs
Cereals as functional foods
- Cereals and their ingredients have dietary fiber, proteins, energy, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.
- Cereals can be used as fermentable substrates for the growth of probiotic organisms.
- Starch present in cereals can be used as encapsulation materials for probiotics that help stability during storage and promote their viability during gastrointestinal tract regulation.
- Beta-glucan, a functional cereal component, is applied in the dairy and bakery industries. It helps to produce products like low-fat ice creams and yogurts.
- Examples of the most common cereal-based functional foods and nutraceuticals are wheat, oat, barley, brown rice, and buckwheat.
- The part of cereals contains different nutrients.
- Outer bran layer is rich in vitamin Band phytonutrients such as flavonoids, indoles, and proteins in a small amount.
- Endosperm contains carbohydrates.
- Germ layer contains minerals like iron and zinc, antioxidants, and vitamin E.
Functions:
- It prevents the risk of cancer and cardiovascular diseases (CVDs).
- It reduces the risk of heart disease, cholesterol, and fat absorption rate.
- It reduces tumor incidence.
- It improves the problem of gastrointestinal.
Legumes as functional foods
- Pulses, recognized as a part of functional foods, are a primary source of protein that consists of non-nutritive bioactive phytochemicals.
- It is also a good source of vitamins, minerals, omega-3 fatty acids, and dietary fiber or non-starch polysaccharides.
- Legumes have non-nutritive compounds such as phytosterols, isoflavones, saponins, phenolic compounds, antioxidants (tocopherols, flavonoids), and a class of phytoestrogens.
- The demand for pulses and legumes is increasing because of their health benefit properties.
Functions:
- It protects the human body against cancer.
- It helps in lowering the cholesterol level and blood glucose responses.
Vegetables as functional foods
- Vegetables, recognized as functional foods, are rich in vitamins, fiber, flavonoids, carotene, minerals, and pigments.
- The calorific value is low but rich in vital components. It helps to maintain the health of the human body. It prevents diseases.
Fruits as functional foods
- Fruits are rich in vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and phytonutrients. Calories and fat are low in fruits, so they have many health benefits.
- It contains soluble dietary fibers and antioxidants such as polyphenolic, vitamin C, flavonoids, and anthocyanin.
Functions:
- It prevents chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and hypertension.
- It protects from aging.
- It protects from infection and Alzheimer’s disease, such as colon cancers and osteoporosis (weak bones).
Probiotics as functional foods
- Probiotics are present in foods or dietary supplements that contain live microorganisms, mainly lactic acid-producing bacteria (Lactobacillus or Bifidobacteria).
- It is innocuous to our health because it helps inhibit harmful microorganisms and has various health benefits.
- Functional food products are mainly applied in dairy fields- dairy products such as synbio fir drinking kefir, synbioghurt drinking yogurt, HunCult fermented drink, Milli Premium sour cream, Aktivit quark dessert, new party buttercream, probios cheese cream.
- Probiotic yogurt is one example that shows a positive response toward lactose intolerant people. Fruit juice is the appropriate medium for the fortification with probiotic cultures.
Functions:
- It helps to lower blood lipids, such as obesity, cardiovascular diseases, blood pressure, and harmful enzyme activities of colonic bacteria.
- It increases the calcium absorption from the intestine.
- It decreases carcinogenicity.
- It stimulates the immune system.
Prebiotics as functional foods
- Prebiotics are non-digestable food ingredients that have beneficial effects on microflora.
- The main prebiotic components are fructo-oligosaccharide, inulin, isomalto-oligosaccharides, polydextrose, lactulose, and resistant starch.
- It increases the growth of beneficial bacteria such as bifidobacteria. It has antioxidant, antiviral, and anticarcinogenic activity.
Functions:
- It helps to reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases, cancer, HTN, DM, and osteoporosis.
- It regulates intestinal transit.
- It stimulates the immune system.
- Inulin and oligofructose increase calcium absorption. It improves bone mineral content and bone mineral density (BMD).
- Oligosaccharides help to control obesity.
Functional drinks
- Functional drinks contain non-alcoholic beverages fortified with Vitamins A, C, and E or other functional components.
- Some functional drinks are cholesterol-lowering drinks obtained from the combination of omega-3 and soy, eye health drinks (with lutein), or bone health drinks (with calcium and inulin).
Bakery products as functional foods
- It is still underdeveloped. The main aim is to improve customer satisfaction in food taste, appearance, and texture.
- Unilever introduced a white bread called Blue Band Goede Start in late 2003. It contains the nutritional ingredients present in brown bread include fibers, vitamins B1, B3, and B6; iron; zinc; inulin (prebiotic starch obtained from wheat).
Functional eggs
- Eggs enriched with omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, and vitamins such as D, E, B12, and folic acid are functional eggs.
- In 1997, Belovo, in Belgium, introduced the eggs enriched with omega-3 and vitamins.
Functions of functional foods
- Potassium-rich food helps to reduce the risk of high blood pressure and heart stroke.
- Protein-rich and Low fat-containing foods reduce the risk of diseases such as coronary heart disease.
- Calcium-rich food helps to reduce the risk of osteoporosis.
- It prevents cancer.
- Folate helps to reduce the risk of neural tube birth defects.
- Dietary sugar alcohol helps to reduce dental cavities problems.
References
- Pachisia, J. (2017, March 2). Concept of functional foods [Slide show]. SlideShare. https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/concept-of-functional-foods/72732351
- Essa, M. M., Bishir, M., Bhat, A., Chidambaram, S. B., Al-Balushi, B., Hamdan, H., Govindarajan, N., Freidland, R. P., & Qoronfleh, M. W. (2021). Functional foods and their impact on health. Journal of Food Science and Technology/Journal of Food Science and Technology, 60(3), 820–834. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13197-021-05193-3
- Overview_of_Functional_Foods.ppt. (2023, June 6). [Slide show]. SlideShare. https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/overviewoffunctionalfoodsppt-258278054/258278054
- Granato, D., Barba, F. J., Kovačević, D. B., Lorenzo, J. M., Cruz, A. G., & Putnik, P. (2020). Functional foods: product development, technological trends, efficacy testing, and safety. Annual Review of Food Science and Technology, 11(1), 93–118. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-food-032519-051708
- K, K. Y. D. (2015, April 22). Functional foods [Slide show]. SlideShare. https://www.slideshare.net/krushnayadavdk/functional-foods-47295949
- Peddie. (2020, January 3). PPT – Functional FOODS PowerPoint Presentation, free download – ID:9444141. SlideServe. https://www.slideserve.com/peddie/functional-foods-powerpoint-ppt-presentation
- Achinna, P. (2021, September 10). Nutraceuticals and functional foods [Slide show]. SlideShare. https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/nutraceuticals-and-functional-foods/250161656
- https://www.coursehero.com/file/82679305/Functional-Foods-2ppt/
- Belwal, E. (2014, December 9). Development of Nutraceuticals & functional foods [Slide show]. SlideShare. https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/development-of-nutraceuticals-functional-foods/42505235