Healthier meat products as functional foods

A promising approach to improving health care would be to produce a healthier food supply as a preventive health care strategy. The food supply could be improved by producing functional foods that have nutritional profiles that are healthier than conventional products. However, production of functional foods is not always easily accomplished since they must also taste good, be convenient and reasonably priced so that consumers will regularly purchase and use the products. Meats have great potential for delivering important nutrients such as fatty acids, minerals, dietary fiber, antioxidants and bioactive peptides into the diet. However, to produce successful products with these ingredients, technologies must be developed to increase their stability and decrease their flavor impact on muscle foods. In addition, many regulatory hurdles must be overcome for the commercial production of meats with added nutrients. These include redefinition of standard of identities and policies that allow front of the package nutritional claims. Without these regulatory changes, production of healthier meat products won't become a reality since these products would not have a competitive advantage over unfortified meats.     

Prebiotics as functional foods: A review

Prebiotics are short chain carbohydrates that are non-digestible by digestive enzymes in humans and selectively enhance the activity of some groups of beneficial bacteria. In the intestine, prebiotics are fermented by beneficial bacteria to produce short chain fatty acids. Prebiotics also render many other health benefits in the large intestine such as reduction of cancer risk and increase calcium and magnesium absorption. Prebiotics are found in several vegetables and fruits and are considered functional food components which present significant technological advantages. Their addition improves sensory characteristics such as taste and texture, and enhances the stability of foams, emulsions and mouthfeel in a large range of food applications like dairy products and bread. This contribution reviews bioactives from food sources with prebiotic properties. Additionally, food application of bioactive prebiotics, stimulation of the viability of probiotics, health benefits, epidemiological studies, and safety concerns of prebiotics are also reviewed.     

Fucoidans as a natural bioactive ingredient for functional foods

Functional food is considered to be any food or food component that provides health benefits beyond basic nutrition. Recently, a great deal of interest has been paid by the consumers towards natural bioactive compounds as functional ingredients in the diets due to their various health beneficial effects. Notably, marine resources have been recognized as rich sources of structurally diverse biologically active compounds with great application potential in marine functional foods. Among them, fucoidans have been found to possess various bioactivities including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-allergic, anti-tumor, anti-obesity, anti-coagulant, anti-viral, anti-hepatopathy, anti-uropathy, and anti-renalpathy effects. Hence, this contribution focuses on fucoidans derived from marine sources and presents a brief overview of their biological activities with health benefits.     

Pulse-based snacks as functional foods: Processing challenges and biological potential

Despite their high nutritional value and potential health benefits, pulse intake has not increased in the last three decades. Several strategies have been implemented to increase pulse consumption, such as their incorporation in bakery products, breakfast cereals, and snacks. The inclusion of pulses in these products could be an alternative to satisfy the consumers’ demand for healthy foods. However, pulse-based snacks face important challenges, including reducing antinutritional factors, achieving consumer acceptance, and consolidating the pulse-based snacks as functional foods. This review summarizes and discusses methods for producing snacks where cereals or tubers were replaced with at least 50% pulses. Also, it briefly assesses their effect on nutritional composition, antinutritional factors, sensory acceptance, and different health benefits evaluations. Extruded snacks exhibited high protein and dietary fiber and low fat content, contrary to the high fat content of deep fat–fried snacks. Meanwhile, baked snacks presented moderate concentrations of protein, dietary fiber, and lipids. Pulses must be pretreated using process combinations such as soaking, dehulling, cooking, fermentation, germination, and extrusion to reduce the antinutritional factors. Pulse-based snacks show good sensory acceptance. However, sensory evaluation should be more rigorous using additional untrained judges. Several studies have evaluated the health benefits of pulse-based snacks. More research is needed to validate scientifically the health benefits associated with their consumption. Pulse-based snacks could be an alternative to improve the nutritional composition of commercially available snacks. The use of pulses as ingredients of healthier snacks represents an important alternative for the food industry due to their low cost, sensory characteristics, high nutritional profile, and environmental benefits.     

Healthier meat and meat products: their role as functional foods

This review deals with the implications of meat and meat products for human health. It analyses the effect of the presence or absence of various factors: fat, fatty acid composition, cholesterol, calorific value, salt, nitrite or lipid oxidation products that can cause health problems. Bearing in mind these considerations, it then describes the strategies used in animal production, treatment of meat raw material and reformulation of meat products to obtain healthier meat and meat products. Functional ingredients are responsible for making functional foods work, and this review therefore discusses the scope of current meat technology to favour the presence of various active-food components, and provide an additional physiological benefit beyond that of meeting basic nutritional needs.     

功能食品和功能性食品配料发展新动向

功能食品是世界食品工业新的增长点,功能性食品配料也成为国内外竟相开发的热点.文章介绍了功能食品的发展概况以及功能性食品配料的发展新动向.重点介绍了功能明显、原料广泛、安全可靠、国内外较流行的几个品种的发展新动向.     

澳大利亚对功能食品的管理

澳大利亚尚未有\     

我国对保健(功能)食品的管理

从保健(功能)食品的范畴、相关管理法规、管理机构及制度、审批机制、标签声明、生产管理等几方面介绍了我国保健(功能)食品的管理体系,为国内外保健(功能)食品企业和业内人士解读我国对保健(功能)食品的管理模式提供借鉴和相关参考。      

Spices as Beneficial Hypolipidemic Food Adjuncts: A Review

Abstract

The spices fenugreek, garlic, ginger, onion, red pepper, and turmeric are effective as hypocholesterolemics under conditions of experimentally induced hypercholesterolemia and hyperlipidemia. Furthermore, fenugreek is effective in human diabetics, whereas garlic and onion are effective in humans with induced lipemia. Capsaicin and curcumin, the active principles of red pepper and turmeric, respectively, are also documented to be efficacious even at doses comparable to calculated human intake. Capsaicin, curcumin, fenugreek, ginger, and onion are understood to cause an enhanced biliary secretion of bile acids also. Considerable human experimentation has been done with garlic and onion, but similar evaluation of the four other spices needs to be done. Limited information is also available on the hypolipidemic influence of spice combinations. Among these six spices, beneficial effects on lipid metabolism would probably be in the order: garlic?>?onion?>?red pepper/capsaicin?>?turmeric/curcumin?>?fenugreek?>?ginger. The mechanisms underlying the hypocholesterolemic and hypotriglyceridemic influence of these spices have also been fairly well understood.     

Apple pomace as a potential ingredient for the development of new functional foods

Extruded snacks and baked scones were formulated with increasing levels (0–30%) of apple pomace (AP). The incorporation of up to 20% of AP in extruded snacks and in baked scones does not change significantly (P < 0.05) the proximate composition of the final products, except for the content of starch of baked scones. At this level of incorporation, the fibre content, phenolic content and antioxidant capacity (DPPH radical scavenging activity, ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) and β‐carotene/linoleic acid system) increased when compared to the products to which no AP was added. Chlorogenic acid and quercetin were the major phenolic compounds found in the products. Loss of phenolic compounds during heat treatment occurred; however, the DPPH radical scavenging activity of final products was not affected.     

Ensuring the future of functional foods

Consumption of functional foods suggests a strategy to reduce the incidence of chronic health disorders. This message has resonated with consumers and driven market growth. Functional food research has significantly increased over the last decade but few studies have addressed the bioavailability of active ingredients for clinical efficacy. Baked goods such as bread, biscuits and cake are popular categories for innovation due to their widespread consumption. These new developments have often impacted on organoleptic properties of the finished products and thus consumer acceptance. Blending of bioactive ingredients may overcome this deficit. However, an understanding of the role of the microbiome in health has indicated that the efficacy of functional foods is unlikely to be uniform within the population. Further growth in the functional foods market, is likely to require greater evidence of the bioavailability of active ingredients, clinical effect and support for health claims by regulators especially in the EU.     

纳米技术在功能性食品中应用

近年来,纳米技术在功能性食品中应用正处快速发展阶段,其作为高新技术在功能性食品领域应用研究得到越来越多关注;纳米技术不仅可用于功能性食品生产和加工,也可提高生物活性、吸收率、稳定性、降低毒性。该文重点介绍纳米技术在功能性食品中应用。     

Promises and problems of functional foods

"Functional" foods are branded foods, which claim, explicitly or implicitly, to improve health or well being. We review typical functional foods and their ingredients, efficacy, and safety. We also review regulations for health claims for foods worldwide. These regulations often allow manufacturers to imply that a food promotes health without providing proper scientific evidence. At the same time, regulations may ban claims that a food prevents disease, even when it does. We offer a plea for regulations that will permit all health claims that are supported by the totality of scientific evidence, and ban all claims that suggest an unproven benefit.     

2009年食品功能化新潮流——膳食纤维强化食品的市场机遇

随着消费者的生活水平的不断提高和健康意识的日渐增强,大众食品功能化已是当今食品工业的一个流行趋势.本文概述了国际市场的最新食品功能化流行趋势,并指出膳食纤维强化食品将成为2009年的最主要趋势,并为食品企业的产品开发和营销方式提出了一定的建议.     

Spices and herbs as source of Salmonella-related foodborne diseases

Salmonella is a leading cause of foodborne diseases and the role of ready-to-eat products including plant-derived food is increasingly recognized. The present survey reviewed recent literature on Salmonella-related outbreaks caused by spices and herbs and on the occurrence of Salmonella in these food matrices. Spices and herbs contaminated with Salmonella were responsible for a variety of foodborne outbreaks in Europe and North America. Identified serovars did often not belong to those predominating in human illness. Moreover, in different survey studies, Salmonella belonging to a broad diversity of serovars were found in a variety of spices and herbs. The proportion of Salmonella-positive samples ranged from 0% to 8.4%, albeit detection rates were rather low in most studies. Higher prevalence rates were often obtained with regard to a specific spice or herb type. Due to high desiccation tolerance, Salmonella can survive for an extended period of time in spices and dried herbs. Thus, by the use of untreated spices and herbs for production of foods not subjected to a heat treatment or for seasoning of ready-to-eat products, Salmonella might be introduced and in this way might pose a threat to consumers.     

Use of phenolic compounds from olive mill wastewater as valuable ingredients for functional foods

ABSTRACT

Olive mill wastewater (OMW) is a pollutant by-product from the virgin olive oil production. Its high content in phenolic compounds makes them play an important role for their use in foods, for their high antioxidant significance. The present paper gives an overview on the techniques for OMW valuable ingredient separation, focusing on the most effective ones for their use in food products as functional ingredients. We report on effective methods to recover OMW phenolics, and give several examples on the use these extracts in foods. When added into vegetable oils, their effect on retarding lipid oxidation improves the oxidative status of the product, whilst several challenges need to be faced. OMW phenolic extracts were also used in food emulsions, milk products or other model systems, showing promising results and little or no negative impact on the sensory characteristics or other properties. Their possible use as antimicrobial agents is also another promising approach, as positive results were obtained when applied in meat products. Other examples of using natural phenolic extracts from other sources are suggested also for OMW extracts, to expand their use and thus to improve the nutritional and technological quality of foods.     

Perspectives on the 21st century development of functional foods: bridging Chinese medicated diet and functional foods

Functional foods, also known as nutraceuticals, medical foods or nutritional foods, are driving food markets around the world and are expected to be one of the emerging trends for the food industry in the new millennium. The concept of functional foods is rooted in a tradition, particularly in Asia, where people have always believed that a balanced diet and some herbal foods are therapeutic. However, while extensive studies in biochemistry and immunology, as well as clinical trials, have been conducted on selected functional foods or ingredients, the scientific features of most traditional herbals remain almost unknown. However, the fastest growing food market in the United States is that of herbal-based nutraceuticals such as ginseng, garlic and medical mushrooms. This review describes different aspects of functional foods and the Chinese medicated diet on the basis of current knowledge, discusses the building blocks for the science of functional foods and proposes a possible way to fuse a Chinese medicated diet into functional foods.     

Consumer issues and expectations for functional foods

Preliminary consumer data have indicated that about 50% of American adults, especially in the older age groups, not only have read or heard about natural substances in foods that may help prevent chronic diseases, but they also believe that these substances really do work. The readiness of the marketplace for disease‐preventing products, such as those that could deliver enhanced levels of antioxidants, raises many marketing and regulatory issues, but also some consumer issues as well. The following discussion frames the consumer issues that are important for the scientific, regulatory, and business community to understand and address so that substances with disease‐preventing capabilities reach those who will truly benefit the most