FUNCTIONAL FOOD: WHAT IS IT ABOUT?
Functional foods are enriched foods. They are not only supposed to fill you up but also have a positive effect on your health. Find out whether this is the case here. What has a positive effect on you is to play online poker with live dealer.
Protein bread, multivitamin juice, probiotic yogurts, or gummy bears rich in vitamins and minerals. All these well-known foods belong to the functional food category. According to the consumer advice center, these are foods with a promised “additional health benefit”. Manufacturers add vitamins, minerals, microorganisms, or plant substances to their products.
However, these do not always lead to the desired health effects and can even have negative consequences for our bodies.
FUNCTIONAL FOOD VS. SUPPLEMENTS
Functional food should not be confused with dietary supplements. The latter are available in the form of capsules, tablets, or drops. These are concentrates of a specific nutrient (e.g. vitamin B12 tablets or vitamin D drops).
Functional food, on the other hand, describes foods that are still preserved in their natural form. For example, this includes cornflakes with added minerals and not pure minerals in capsule form.
THE LEGAL BASIS
Even in the case of functional food, all promises on the packaging must be proven. The term “functional food” is not defined in law. It therefore includes both everyday foods and dietary foods. They are only intended to treat certain health complaints. A dietary food is, for example, margarine that has been enriched with secondary plant substances. This is designed for people with high cholesterol levels.
Probiotic dairy products and wellness and vitamin drinks are popular in the functional food sector. In addition, a lot of money is currently being invested in research into functional foods. The importance of these foods is likely to continue to grow.
From a legal perspective, compliance with mandatory labeling is particularly relevant for functional foods. The packaging of these products often contains promises such as “cholesterol-lowering”, “strengthens the immune system” or “promotes concentration”. If there is no scientific evidence for these promises, the products in question are withdrawn from the market.
In addition, the corresponding regulation also stipulates that a product may only contain claims such as “rich in fiber” or “rich in vitamin C”. If the respective additive is also contained in a certain amount.
HOW HEALTHY ARE FUNCTIONAL FOODS?
- Functional food is currently particularly popular as consumers hope to be able to cover their daily vitamin and mineral requirements more easily. Only certain groups, such as athletes or pregnant women, have an increased risk of being deficient in certain nutrients. In these cases, however, it makes more sense to supplement the missing nutrients under medical supervision than to consume functional food.
- Diet is important: To prevent or counteract deficiency symptoms, Sam also recommends a balanced diet with natural foods. It is generally healthier to eat whole foods – without any additives. When you eat an apple, for example, you are also consuming fiber (from the skin) and phytochemicals. Apple juice, on the other hand, lacks fiber.
- Unusable ingredients: In addition, not all chemically added substances in functional foods are usable by the body. In vitamin drinks (also known as functional water), for example, fat-soluble vitamins are also added to the drinks. These include vitamins A, D, E, and K. We can only utilize them if we consume them together with some fat. However, if they are only dissolved in water, we excrete them unused.
