You may have heard this term functional foods. It’s used a lot these days, especially when talking about holistic and functional nutrition. We’ll do a deep dive today, and go over common foods that are, indeed, functional!
What does "functional food" mean?
A functional food is a food that is said to have more health benefits that go beyond the basic nutritional components of a food. For example, these foods could help protect against disease, reduce inflammation, or enhance immune function.
Functional foods can be whole, natural, and minimally processed, like fruits and vegetables.
Or, they could be foods that were fortified with nutrients that the food didn’t have before, like fortified grains (adding in folate or iron), or fortified orange juice (adding in vitamin D).
Examples of functional foods
Oats: contain beta-glucans, which is a component of dietary fibre (1). Beta-glucans have been shown to decrease risk for diabetes by reducing blood glucose concentrations, decreasing LDL (bad) cholesterol, and increasing HDL (good) cholesterol, reducing hypertension (2, 3).
Chia seeds: contain fibre and polyunsaturated fatty acids (like omega-3) (4). Chia seeds have demonstrated cardio-protective properties over and over again in many scientific studies (5, 6).
Pomegranate & blueberries: high polyphenolic, flavonoid, and antioxidant properties (7). These fruits have strong anti-inflammatory properties (9), inhibitory effect of cancer cell growth (8), immune attenuation (10), and anti-bacterial (11). *it is worth noting, that the anti-bacterial properties of pomegranate have shown effectiveness in petri dishes in the research, and not conclusively in living humans; extrapolating the results of one and applying to the other may not be appropriate or even correct
Almonds: contains vitamin E (12), an antioxidant that must be obtained from diet, which prevents oxidative stress, helps to produce vessel relaxing nitric oxide (cardio-protective!), and many MANY more health benefits (13, 14)
Salmon: has omega-3’s which prevent heart disease and lowers triglycerides (15, 16)
Soooo.... are they beneficial?
YES. Functional foods are SO beneficial. What’s fantastic is that so many foods have extra (potential) health benefits beyond their basic nutrition. That’s why it is incredibly important to eat a well rounded meal that contains fresh ingredients, whole ingredients, and natural/minimally processed ingredients.
References
(1) Rasane, Prasad, et al. “Nutritional advantages of oats and opportunities for its processing as value added foods-a review.” Journal of food science and technology 52.2 (2015): 662-675.
(2) Chen, Jiezhong, and Kenneth Raymond. “Beta-glucans in the treatment of diabetes and associated cardiovascular risks.” Vascular health and risk management 4.6 (2008): 1265
(3) Andrade, Eric Francelino, et al. “Effect of beta-glucans in the control of blood glucose levels of diabetic patients: a systematic review.” Nutricion hospitalaria 31.1 (2015): 170-177
(4) Melo, Diana, Thelma B. Machado, and M. Beatriz PP Oliveira. “Chia seeds: an ancient grain trending in modern human diets.” Food & function 10.6 (2019): 3068-3089.
(5) Ullah, Rahman, et al. “Nutritional and therapeutic perspectives of Chia (Salvia hispanica L.): a review.” Journal of food science and technology 53.4 (2016): 1750-1758.
(6) Fernandez I,. Vidueiros SM, Ayerza R, Coates W, Pallaro A (2008) Impact of chia (Salvia hispanica L.) on the immune system: preliminary study Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 67 (OCE), E12 doi:10.1017/S0029665108006216
(7) Johanningsmeier, Suzanne D., and G. Keith Harris. “Pomegranate as a functional food and nutraceutical source.” Annual review of food science and technology 2 (2011): 181-201.
(8) Sreekumar, Sreeja, et al. “Pomegranate fruit as a rich source of biologically active compounds.” BioMed Research International 2014 (2014).
(9) Miller, Katharina, Walter Feucht, and Markus Schmid. “Bioactive compounds of strawberry and blueberry and their potential health effects based on human intervention studies: A brief overview.” Nutrients 11.7 (2019): 1510.
(10) Ma, Luyao, et al. “Molecular mechanism and health role of functional ingredients in blueberry for chronic disease in human beings.” International journal of molecular sciences 19.9 (2018): 2785.
(11) Howell, Amy B., and Doris H. D’Souza. “The pomegranate: effects on bacteria and viruses that influence human health.” Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2013 (2013).
(12): Barreca, Davide, et al. “Almonds (Prunus dulcis Mill. DA webb): A source of nutrients and health-promoting compounds.” Nutrients 12.3 (2020): 672.
(13) Rizvi, Saliha, et al. “The role of vitamin E in human health and some diseases.” Sultan Qaboos University Medical Journal 14.2 (2014): e157.
(14) Niki, Etsuo, and Maret G. Traber. “A history of vitamin E.” Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism 61.3 (2012): 207-212.
(15) Gammone, Maria Alessandra, et al. “Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids: benefits and endpoints in sport.” Nutrients 11.1 (2019): 46.
(16) Kiefer, David, and Traci Pantuso. “Omega-3 fatty acids: An update emphasizing clinical use.” Agro food industry hi-tech 23.4 (2012): 10.
