ABSTRACT
This chapter examines food companies' various nutritional engineering strategies, and their use of nutrient-content and health claims, to create a demand for their products. It considers how the food industry and governments have proposed or implemented other front-of-pack labeling schemes, such as nutrition scoring and traffic-light labeling systems, in order to inform or influence consumers' understanding of the nutritional quality of food products. The food industry's nutritional engineering and marketing strategies have reflected the broader changes in nutritional paradigms over the past fifty years. The functional foods concept was first introduced in Japan in the 1980s, a country that has led the development of modified foods targeting good health. The world's first product identified as a functional food was a soft drink containing added dietary fiber, Fibre Mini, launched in Japan in 1988. Public health nutritionists have been critical of the way the functional foods concept blurs the boundary between food and medicine.
