Читать книгу Functional Foods - Группа авторов - Страница 24

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 market were designed to meet the needs for particular health condition as evident by medical and nutritional experts. Consumers are more familiar to 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. More research is required to explore the effectiveness of functional food to consumers avoiding medications. Functional foods are based on either plant/animal source or using any active components from these sources. Another concern is about the sustainable sources of functional ingredients, green technologies for extraction of these functional ingredients and advanced technologies for processing and packaging of functional foods. Simultaneously, the safety perspectives, guidelines and advancements in regulations of functional foods are also requisite at global level.