The functional foods: development and opportunities

: The development of food science in near future depends on advance in functional food science, the concept of which was proposed first in Japan nearly in the 1980s. The Japanese government developed a regulatory agency to oversee the approval of functional foods in 1991. The name of this agency is called Foods for Specified Health Use (FOSHU). Functional foods are increasingly popular in the United States. Furthermore, functional foods are reported as one of the fastest growing segments of the food economy in United States. Research on food and nutrition plays an important role in the Framework Program of Development and Research in the European Commission, established in the seventh Framework Program for Funding and in conducted Europeans projects: PASSCLAIM, FUFOSE, etc.