Health food
Health food is food considered beneficial to health in ways that go beyond a normal healthy diet required for human nutrition. Because there is no precise, authoritative definition from regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, different dietary practices can be considered healthy depending on context.
Foods considered "healthy" may be natural foods, organic foods, whole foods, and sometimes vegetarian or dietary supplements. Such products are sold in health food stores or in the health/organic sections of supermarkets.
Contents
Health claims
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In the United States, health-related claims on nutrition facts labels are regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), while advertising is regulated by the Federal Trade Commission.
According to the FDA, "Health claims describe a relationship between a food, food component, or dietary supplement ingredient, and reducing risk of a disease or health-related condition".[1]
In general, claims of health benefits for specific foodstuffs have not been evaluated by national regulatory agencies. Additionally, research funded by manufacturers or marketers that may form the basis of such marketing claims has been shown to result in more favorable results than independently funded research.[2]
While there is no precise definition for "health food", the United States Food and Drug Administration has warned food manufacturers against labeling foods as being "healthy" when they have a high sugar, salt, or fat content.[3]
Examples
The following is a non-exhaustive list of foods that have been considered healthy:
- Apple cider vinegar, a fruit vinegar considered a health food
- Broccoli sprouts
- Certain cereal products:
- Corn flakes, patented food invented in 1894
- Digestive biscuit, English baked good from 1851, containing fiber and sometimes sodium bicarbonate
- Graham cracker, cracker made with whole grain Graham flour (1829)
- Graham bread, a type of whole wheat bread
- Granola, a food made from mixed, toasted grains
- Granula, the first manufactured breakfast cereal (1863)
- Grape-Nuts, an American breakfast cereal made from baked and ground grain (1897)
- Muesli, breakfast cereal of rolled oats, fruit and nuts, made by a Swiss doctor (1900)
- Shredded wheat, whole wheat cereal (1893)
- Eggplant, hosts of vitamin and minerals, and also contains important phytonutrients
- Herbal extract, plants, often medicinal that are concentrated and standardized
- Herbal teas
- Honey, a naturally occurring whole sweetener
- Malt, whole sprouted barley
- Meat analogue, a dietary alternative to meat, found in some vegetarian and vegan diets[4]
- Molasses, black strap molasses has been sold as a health food
- Certain oils, including olive oil and fish oil
- Postum, a coffee alternative from 1895[5]
- Yogurt, traditional cultured milk product
See also
References
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- ↑ FDA to beef up standards for "health" food labeling, Scientific American
- ↑ Messina, Ginny. Healthy Vegan Diets Can Include Meat Analogues - The Vegan R.D.
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