1: Br J Nutr. 2002 Nov;88 Suppl 2:S133-8.

Global view on functional foods: European perspectives.

Roberfroid MB.

Universite Catholique de Louvain, 7A rue du Rondia, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve,
Belgium. roberfroid@orafti.com

In the context of this presentation, European means the European scientific
community, which, over the last decade, has been working on the concepts for
functional foods, producing a number of documents including a consensus paper,
guidelines and scientific publications. The Functional Food Science in Europe
(FUFOSE) project has been quite a unique attempt to establish a strong
scientific framework to justify the functional food concept, to discover and
develop new functional foods that are primarily function-driven, and to
substantiate claims scientifically. Being clearly positioned as part of
nutrition, the functional food concept is, however, quite distinct from other
approaches like food supplementation or food fortification, and functional foods
are different from nutraceuticals, pharmafoods, vitafoods and 'alicaments', all
terms that are not defined conceptually. Functional foods are food products to
be taken as part of the usual diet in order to have beneficial effects that go
beyond what are known as traditional nutritional effects. Moreover, these
beneficial effects have to be demonstrated scientifically to justify two
specific types of claim: the enhanced function claim or the reduction of disease
risk claim. Functional food is a key concept for the future of nutrition as a
science because it results from the implementation in nutrition of all the basic
scientific knowledge that has accumulated over the past two or three decades. To
the benefit of public health this progress cannot be ignored, it needs to be
recognized fully and used. But, today, functional food is still mainly a
scientific concept that serves to stimulate research and the development of new
products.

PMID: 12495454 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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