Functional Foods

The term “functional foods” was created in the late 1980s in Japan—the only nation that has legally defined functional foods. Functional foods, also known as “designer foods,” are not pills or elixirs. They are similar in appearance and usage to conventional foods—cereal products, dairy products, confectionery, prepared meals—but go beyond the nutrition and satisfying hunger purposes to also provide medical benefits to the body and mind. Functional foods have been marketed in the United States since the last quarter of the nineteenth century and increasingly since the 1990s.