What Are Functional Foods ?

There are many definitions of functional foods. I put functional foods into three categories for the benefit of efficiency. The topic of functional foods goes much deeper than this brief post.

The three categories are: 

1. those whole foods that inherently possess greater than average nutritional value beyond basic nutrition, for example an apple, spinach, or parsley

2. those  foods that have been fortified or enriched with various nutrients, phytochemicals, antioxidants etc in order to deliver superior physiological benefit, for example calcium fortified orange juice

3. and isolated bioactive components, for example Vitamin C is one of many bioactive components found in a lemon

At the most basic level a fresh fruit, vegetable , or herb can be considered a functional food.

Functional foods aren’t really new. Iodine was added to salt in the early 1900s with the intention to prevent goiter. This represented one of the earliest examples of fortification. Vitamin A, vitamin D, and folic acid are also early examples of  functional food fortification.

Isolated bioactive components are an interesting topic. For example a tomato can be considered a functional food. Its  most well known isolated bioactive component is lycopene. However in many cases other bioactive co factors  found in the whole food are known enhance or upgrade overall value at a cellular level. As an example Vitamin C is known to deliver greater benefits in combination with bioflavonoids.

Today high quality functional foods provide substantial benefits for improving quality of life and achieving peak human performance.

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