1.1.4 Nutrition and health

An important grouping is related to the function of the products in nutrition and health.

Provision of calories has dominated the food industry for many years: firstly the basic need was to provide calories and then in recent years, the push to reduce calories. Early products in small groceries at the beginning of the 20th century were bread, butter and margarine, sugar, jam, bacon, beef suet - all high- energy foods. In contrast at the end of the century, supermarkets now sell low-fat milks, diet colas, trimmed pork and so on. There will always be 'calorie' foods but the question is what calories they should provide in the next 50 years?

Together with calorie foods, came protein foods - legumes, dairy products, meat and fish. It has taken some time to raise the amount of protein in the diet and even in the developed countries there are poor people who are not getting adequate amounts of protein. Legumes and cereals are the cheapest protein foods and these may be stronger areas for protein product development, but of course dairy products, meat and fish will remain major areas for product development for more affluent consumers.

There are many more nutrients needed as well as the basic calories and protein, and there have been specific foods designed with fibre, vitamin and mineral enrichments. There is recent re-emphasis on what might be termed the older deficiencies such as calcium, iodine and iron. There will always be foods designed with this supplementation as there have been in the past (Deutsch, 1977).

Recently, the emphasis has shifted from foods supplying the essential nutrients to sustain life and growth to foods for prevention or indeed curing of disease; what have been termed nutriceutical or functional foods (Sloan, 1999). These functional foods have expanded from the health-food stores to the supermarkets, but there is some difficulty in defining what they are. One British definition is 'processed foods containing ingredients that aid specific bodily functions in addition to being nutritious' (Alldrick, 1997) and an American definition is 'foods that encompass potentially healthful products, including any modified food or food ingredient that may provide a health benefit beyond the traditional nutrients it contains' (Platzman, 1999). These definitions are very broad and cover a wide variety of products. If functional foods are to survive in the future they need to be based on scientific evidence and not emotional effects.