Functional Foods-an Overview
For a long time, scientists have understood that there is a direct link between the food we eat and our health. The modern concept of functional foods arose from the progressive awareness that eating nutritious foods leads to a healthy diet, as well as the discovery of the processes by which foods affect metabolism and health. When we eat, our primary goal is to collect nutrients for our bodies and to meet our metabolic requirements.
Some food groups, on the other hand, have significant health benefits in addition to their nutritional features. These foods are known as functional foods, and they can be defined as any item that, in addition to its nutritional content, has a favourable impact on an individual’s health, physical performance, or mental state. Other criteria for defining a functional food have been proposed, including three additional conditions in particular:
- It is a food made from natural ingredients (rather than a pill, tablet, or powder);
- It can and should be included in one’s everyday diet.
- When ingested, it has a specific function that helps to regulate a specific physiological process, such as:
- enhancing biological defence systems
- specialised illness prevention
- recuperation from particular illnesses
- management of physical and mental illnesses
- The ageing process is slowed.
