What are Functional Foods?

Increasingly, foods sold in the supermarkets come with health claims on the label. To name just a few, oatmeal and soy are said to help prevent heart disease, milk and calcium-fortified orange juice to fight osteoporosis, and folate-enriched flour to prevent birth defects. These are all “functional foods”—foods marketed as offering specific health benefits.

There are two main categories of functional foods. The first (and largest) category consists of ordinary foods that contain health-promoting substances. This category essentially includes all fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, soy and other legumes, and numerous other foods such as herbal teas, yogurt, and cold-water fish. When these foods are presented as functional foods, their specific health benefits and healthy constituents...