Читать книгу Functional Foods - Группа авторов - Страница 12

Navnidhi Chhikara1 and Anil Panghal2*

1Department of Food Technology, Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology, Hisar, India

2AICRP-PHET, Department of Food Processing & Engineering, Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, India

Abstract

The consumer demand has switched to food choices which besides supplying the basic nutrients also contribute towards betterment of health. Functional foods can be conventional, modified or may contain any functional ingredient. Functional foods include a huge range of foods like whole foods along with fortified, enriched or enhanced foods, probiotics and designer foods. Functional foods protect from numerous lifestyle generated disease as well as promote the growth and development. The demand and market growth of functional foods is controlled by socio-demographic characteristics, awareness, knowledge of nutritional advantages and health claims, labeling and attitude of consumers. The smart, health conscious consumer is demanding for functional foods for their overall health and wellbeing. In the current scenario, the existing functional foods in today’s markets were designed to meet the needs for particular health conditions as evident by medical and nutritional experts. Consumers are more familiar with the functional foods and thus the functional foods are now accepted by the group of consumers whose interest is in following healthy food choice and dietary benefits. Researchers from the various fields of nutrition, pharmaceutical, microbiology, dairy sciences, medical sciences and food sciences are reporting their research findings on many interesting characteristics of food components in terms of their physiological functions. This chapter summarizes the different findings from multidisciplinary fields and role of regulatory bodies for law and regulations of functional foods.

Keywords: Probiotics, bioactive compounds, nutraceuticals, supplements