Functional foods: brief information

ABSTRACT

Functional foods are those which may provide a health benefit beyond the nutritional nutrients they contain. Confusion exists about how to describe the newly evolving area of food and food technology due to presence of numerous interchangeable or related terms. Epidemiological. in vivo, in vitro and clinical trial data indicated that a plant based diet can reduce the risk of chronic disease, particularly cancer. Phytochemicals were found to play a key role in this respect. Meanwhile, there are functional foods from animal sources, fish contain, omega-3 or n-3 fatty acids, fermented dairy products contain probiotics and beef contains conjugated linoleic acid, are all good examples for such foods. Obviously. there are no "good" or "bad" foods, but there are "good" or "bad" diets. Institutional and market innovation may be as important as technical innovation itself for leveraging, the potential of functional foods