Functional Foods, Marketing of

Synonyms

Advertising of foods; Bioactive foods, marketing of; Politics and history of nutrition; Scientizing food

Introduction

“Let’s face it,” says Marion Nestle, of the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at New York University, “functional foods are about marketing, not health. Fruits and vegetables are already perfectly adequate to help prevent cancer and heart disease” (Brophy and Schardt 1999). Nestle’s statement points, perhaps unconsciously, to the entrenched thinking of many scholars and scientists of nutrition that food is more than just nourishment and that it is an active agent in the body. More than simply “filling us up” or tasting good, the belief is that food contains “bioactive” compounds that are essential to health and well-being. Because nutrition policies encourage nations to pursue “health” through eating, food scientists, nutritionists, and biochemists continue their research into the function of particular nutrients in the body, the foods in which those...