Functional foods

Functional foods are fresh or processed foods that are claimed to have a health-promoting and/or disease-preventing property beyond basic nutritional function). They are big business in the food industry. But these claims are sometimes misleading, either:

• Lacking in evidence; or
• Economical with the truth, highlighting a potential health benefit (e.g. added vitamins) to mask unhealthy factors (e.g. high sugar).

That’s why new rules are currently being implemented in the European Union. Intended to tighten up consumer protection, they require up-front evidence to support health claims, linking them to nutrient profiles so unhealthy products can’t carry health claims. The Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation (1924/2006/EC) will affect what health claims can be made and what nutritional benchmarks a product needs to meet in order to carry one.

Reaction has been mixed. The food industry and consumers are broadly supportive. However, business is concerned about lack of transparency, the high proportion of claims rejected, and the level of evidence required for a claim to be accepted.

Consumer bodies are concerned that the nutrient profiling central to the regulation – the benchmarks supposed to ensure that unhealthy products can’t carry health claims – is being eroded. Some foods that are tagged red or amber under the UK Food Standards Agency traffic light system would carry health claims according to the current draft profiles. This calls into question whether the EU benchmarks are high enough. It could cause confusion by exposing consumers to contradictory health messages on food packaging. This could undermine trust in health claims and healthy eating advice.

Priorities

The EU should:

• Guarantee transparency and a clear forward programme for the regulatory process
• Tighten up the regulation, to ensure that benchmarks for nutrient profiling are kept strong, so that foods with a marginal place in a healthy diet are not permitted to carry health claims.