Functional foods in the USA: emphasis on probiotic foods

The role that functional foods might play in enhancing human health is continuing to develop. Comprehensive approaches, which will enable scientists both to understand the total human physiological response to diet (through application of human genomics and metabolomics) and evaluate health maintenance rather than disease incidence, will advance this field greatly. In the United States, functional foods remain of interest to consumers, although there is currently no legal definition of a functional food. One functional ingredient, probiotics, shows much promise as a health-promoting addition to foods, or as a basis for dietary supplements. A growth industry in the United States, the probiotics industry must develop a proactive policy in order to bolster consumer confidence in commercial probiotic products. Many publications suggest that commercial probiotic products do not comply with label claims. This article seeks to examine probiotics as functional food ingredients and the regulatory framework for labelling and describing the benefits of functional foods, as well as dietary supplements.