ABSTRACT
The twentieth century has seen signi cant changes in life styles of world population, essentially due to rise in purchasing power together with increased leisure and reduced physical activity. The life style changes had speci c impact on food consumption patterns of general public. There was a shift toward consumption of energy-dense foods with high levels of sugar and saturated fats, which during the course of time showed detrimental effects on health, indicated by rapid global rise in chronic diseases such as obesity, coronary heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and rheumatoid arthritis.1,2 It has been calculated that, in 2001, these diseases contributed approximately 60% of the 56.5 million total reported deaths in the world.1 The rise in chronic diseases geared up the medical profession to look for new technologies for their diagnosis and cure. Parallel to these developments, there was also increasing general awareness on the protective role of diet to combat these diseases. The 400 BC tenet of Hypocrates, “Let food be thy medicine and medicine thy food,” started attracting increasing attention by the modern world. Educational campaigns undertaken on the importance of both macro and micronutrients in food made consumers recognize the importance of diet in maintenance of health, which also made them return to natural foods, particularly with the “back-to-nature” revolution of the 1960s. The elderly population throughout the world, in particular, has a cautious approach toward foods, preferring only those having low contents of saturated lipid, sugar, and sodium. In recent times, there is also a tendency among the public, in general, to regularly check the biomarker pro les (low-density lipoprotein, blood pressure, glucose tolerance, etc.) with a view to maintain them under acceptable level to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, and diabetes. As a consequence, there has also been an increasing demand for functional foods and food supplements. A new self-care paradigm that foods can provide health bene ts and coexist with traditional medicines to disease treatment is getting its deserving attention.3,4 The change in consumer outlook has also resulted in a shift in the operation pro les of global food industry from traditional limited objectives of preservation, quality improvement, and value addition to a wider program of development of products that can protect consumer health. The industry is being called upon to develop speci c forti ed and dietetic foods (also called therapeutic diets) incorporating nutraceuticals to address nutritional needs of persons, whose normal processes of assimilation/metabolism is affected. Attempts in this direction involve translating scienti c advances in the eld of nutrition into development of functional foods that can address problems of nutrient de ciencies in conventional diets. Table 1.1 shows top health concerns in uencing purchase of functional foods.5
