Functional/Fortified Foods and Ingredients
Functional or fortified foods have a new ingredient/s added to the food, and the new product has an additional function, usually health or disease related..
Some Examples are:
Functional foods are part of the trend in products, that people can eat food to increase their health and/or contribute to reducing disease.
They are an emerging field in food science, due to increased popularity, especially from health conscious consumers, and marketers creating new interest in already existing products.
Studies are continuing into the benefits and risks of these foods. Care should be taken not to merely accept facts presented in marketing.
Lillian Cheung, Ph.D, a nutrition professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, also points out that adding nutrients to a food can encourage people to perceive it as unequivocally healthy, whether it's low-fat and fiber-rich oatmeal that's been fortified or a similarly enhanced bag of potato chips packed with fat and bereft of any naturally occurring nutrients that the oatmeal has.
"The fact that brands have gone to the trouble to add this stuff sends an implicit message that the finished product is desirable, and that's just not always the case," she says. "Sports drinks are an example. The sugar they contain is so much worse than the added vitamins. But that information gets obscured."
People can also over consume some vitamins and minerals that could be harmful in large amounts, or under consume others because they misapprehend the amount of nutrients these foods contain. Over processing of food is also believed to reduce the nutritional value.
TASK 8
Use the information above and in the online articles below to write a short newspaper article (Minimum 150 words) Outlne what fortified foods are (and give examples). Explain their positive and negative health benefits.
Some Examples are:
- Milk, Cheese and Yoghurts ( low fat, high calcium, cholesterol free, lactose free, iron enriched)
- Breads and Cereals ( high fibre, cholesterol reducing, vitamin and iron enriched)
- Margarine (cholesterol reducing, fat reduced, salt reduced, rich in omega 3)
- Jam, Jellies, Spreads ( Low kilojoule, fat reduced)
Functional foods are part of the trend in products, that people can eat food to increase their health and/or contribute to reducing disease.
They are an emerging field in food science, due to increased popularity, especially from health conscious consumers, and marketers creating new interest in already existing products.
Studies are continuing into the benefits and risks of these foods. Care should be taken not to merely accept facts presented in marketing.
Lillian Cheung, Ph.D, a nutrition professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, also points out that adding nutrients to a food can encourage people to perceive it as unequivocally healthy, whether it's low-fat and fiber-rich oatmeal that's been fortified or a similarly enhanced bag of potato chips packed with fat and bereft of any naturally occurring nutrients that the oatmeal has.
"The fact that brands have gone to the trouble to add this stuff sends an implicit message that the finished product is desirable, and that's just not always the case," she says. "Sports drinks are an example. The sugar they contain is so much worse than the added vitamins. But that information gets obscured."
People can also over consume some vitamins and minerals that could be harmful in large amounts, or under consume others because they misapprehend the amount of nutrients these foods contain. Over processing of food is also believed to reduce the nutritional value.
TASK 8
Use the information above and in the online articles below to write a short newspaper article (Minimum 150 words) Outlne what fortified foods are (and give examples). Explain their positive and negative health benefits.
Fortified Foods
Fortified foods are foods that have a specific function other than to just give us energy. These functions are usually health or disease related, such as cholesterol lowering, nutrient rich or omega-3 containing. Functional foods have this extra ingredient/s added, as they are usually not occurring in natural foods.
Not to be confused with enriched foods, which are foods that are re-enriched with vitamins and minerals after they are removed in processing, or super foods such as tuna or avocado which naturally contain these properties and vitamins.
Some examples of fortified foods include Omega 3 containing milk, cholesterol lowering margarine, mineral water, or hi-fibre, iron and folate containing bread.
Some pros to fortified foods include that they have a better nutritional value. These fortified foods, if you are going to eat something processed, at least have extra vitamins and minerals to the same product that doesn't. Fortified foods also mean that staple basics, especially in third world countries, have a better nutritional value and so the population eating a staple diet will have some nourishment. They also mean that we could be consuming things our body needs that we often don't depending on our diets.
However, they also have a downside. They are often more expensive. We don't know some of the long term effects. Often, people fall prey to the marketing as often these foods, although containing more things such as fibre, could also contain many things which are bad for us. It would be better to just eat super foods like avocado and chia seeds. Also, there aren't many rules on displaying amounts of the fortifying ingredients in foods, so you could be consuming less of a vitamin than you think, which can be bad for your health, or more than you think, in which some minerals and vitamins such as folate are believed to possibly be dangerous in high amounts.
Not to be confused with enriched foods, which are foods that are re-enriched with vitamins and minerals after they are removed in processing, or super foods such as tuna or avocado which naturally contain these properties and vitamins.
Some examples of fortified foods include Omega 3 containing milk, cholesterol lowering margarine, mineral water, or hi-fibre, iron and folate containing bread.
Some pros to fortified foods include that they have a better nutritional value. These fortified foods, if you are going to eat something processed, at least have extra vitamins and minerals to the same product that doesn't. Fortified foods also mean that staple basics, especially in third world countries, have a better nutritional value and so the population eating a staple diet will have some nourishment. They also mean that we could be consuming things our body needs that we often don't depending on our diets.
However, they also have a downside. They are often more expensive. We don't know some of the long term effects. Often, people fall prey to the marketing as often these foods, although containing more things such as fibre, could also contain many things which are bad for us. It would be better to just eat super foods like avocado and chia seeds. Also, there aren't many rules on displaying amounts of the fortifying ingredients in foods, so you could be consuming less of a vitamin than you think, which can be bad for your health, or more than you think, in which some minerals and vitamins such as folate are believed to possibly be dangerous in high amounts.