Contents:
- Medical Video: 4 of the Most Nutrient Dense Foods on Earth
- What is functional food?
- What are some examples?
- Is this food beneficial for health?
- Remember, functional food is not a substitute for food
Medical Video: 4 of the Most Nutrient Dense Foods on Earth
During this time you may often see various types of food products that are claimed to be healthy. With technological advances, humans create foods enriched with certain nutrients to produce healthier foods. One type of food that you may often hear is functional food. What is that really?
What is functional food?
Functional foods are foods or drinks that are enriched with certain nutrients or substances (such as vitamins, minerals, fiber, and probiotics) beyond the natural nutrients that are already present in these foods. This is intended to add value to food so that it can have a positive effect on health beyond the existing basic nutritional value.
What are some examples?
Functional food includes very extensive food products. Starting from foods made from certain functional ingredients (such as dairy products containing probiotics) to daily staple foods enriched with certain nutrients (such as cereals fortified with folic acid, cooking oil enriched with vitamin A, acid-enriched eggs) omega-3 fats, and many more).
Examples of functional ingredients commonly added to food are:
- Probiotics, are good bacteria that are the same as bacteria in your intestine. Eating foods that contain probiotics can improve your intestinal health.
- Prebiotics, can encourage the growth of good bacteria in the intestine and inhibit the growth of bad bacteria in the intestine, thus increasing intestinal health.
- Stanol and sterol, can give a cholesterol-lowering effect, so this ingredient is often added to low-fat margarine.
Is this food beneficial for health?
Often, functional foods are labeled with certain health claims which state that these foods can be beneficial to health. Maybe this is true. However, you as a consumer must be smart in choosing food. Not infrequently, these claims are also misleading, so don't be easy to believe.
It is important for you to look again at food with nutrients or functional ingredients added to it. Find out if substances added to food can be absorbed by food. And, after you eat these functional foods, do you feel the impact on your health, for example on blood pressure or blood cholesterol.
Remember, functional food is not a substitute for food
Although functional foods contain a variety of nutrients that can improve health and help you fulfill the nutrients needed, these foods still cannot replace the natural nutrients in food. You still have to try to meet your nutritional needs by running a balanced nutrition diet (consumption of carbohydrate, vegetable protein, animal protein, vegetables and fruits).
After all, functional foods can only benefit health, not provide solutions to your health problems. You can add functional food to your daily diet as an alternative to healthy food. But, don't forget to keep eating other fresh foods that contain natural nutrients.
