查看文章

This report examines food products which claim, or imply, that they possess a health or nutritional benefit to the consumer. These include the recently-promoted ‘functional’ foods — such as those with added bacterial cultures, fish oils or soluble polysaccharides supposedly of benefit to the eater — as well as foods which have for some time been promoting themselves as having the benefit of added nutrients or being a rich source of certain nutrients. That a food product should claim, or imply a claim, to be of specific health or nutritional benefit is of concern to consumer and public health organisations for several reasons. Firstly, the claim may be misleading in that the supposed benefit may not easily be obtained from the product in practical use: the present survey found that most products did not appear to have been tested to ensure that they actually imparted any health benefits to the consumer. Adding fish oil to white bread, for example, was only justified by reference to evidence about the benefits of eating diets that included oily fish, while the addition of soluble fibre to a soft drink was justified by reference to reports which, when examined, urged that dietary fibre be consumed in its original food and not in extracted forms.