Functional foods are foods that provide health benefits beyond basic
nutrition due to certain physiologically
active components, which may or may not have been manipulated or modified to enhance their bioactivity. These foods may help prevent disease, reduce the risk of developing disease, or enhance health.Clearly, most foods are
functional in some way. What makes a "functional food," however, is its potential ability to positively affect health. Functional foods range from fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, which are naturally high in
phytochemicals, to products in which a specific ingredient is added, removed, increased, or decreased. Examples of functional foods include soy, oats, flaxseed, grape juice, broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables, phytosterol/stanol-enriched margarine, eggs enhanced with omega-3
fatty acids, foods
fortified with
herbal preparations.Many developed functional foods seem to have benefits for human health. For example, calcium-fortified orange juice provides approximately the same amount of calcium as milk. With more than half of all children under the age of five and nearly 85 percent of females age twelve to nineteen not meeting the Dietary Reference Intake (DRI) for calcium, calcium-fortified orange juice may contribute significantly to calcium intake. On the other hand, a positive impact on health is more difficult to establish for other developed functional foods. These include prepared foods spiked with herbal preparations, which may contain little of the herbal
ingredients listed on the label, or insufficient quantities of these ingredients to produce the claimed effect. Additionally, some herbal ingredients can be harmful, such as kava, which has been associated with liver damage, and belladonna, which is toxic.