Functional Foods Examined: The Health Claims Being Made for Food Products and the Need for Regulation
Year: 1996
Type: book
Abstract: This report examines food products which claim, or imply, that they possess a health or \nnutritional benefit to the consumer. These include the recently-promoted ‘functional’ foods — \nsuch as those with added bacterial cultures, fish oils or soluble polysaccharides supposedly of \nbenefit to the eater — as well as foods which have for some time been promoting themselves as \nhaving the benefit of added nutrients or being a rich source of certain nutrients. \nThat a food product should claim, or imply a claim, to be of specific health or nutritional benefit is \nof concern to consumer and public health organisations for several reasons. Firstly, the claim \nmay be misleading in that the supposed benefit may not easily be obtained from the product in \npractical use: the present survey found that most products did not appear to have been tested to \nensure that they actually imparted any health benefits to the consumer. Adding fish oil to white \nbread, for example, was only justified by reference to evidence about the benefits of eating diets \nthat included oily fish, while the addition of soluble fibre to a soft drink was justified by reference \nto reports which, when examined, urged that dietary fibre be consumed in its original food and \nnot in extracted forms.
Authors: Jane Bradbury, Tim Lobstein, Vivien Lund
Language: English
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W119449749