Functional Foods Are More Than Magical :: Holistic Healing

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Functional Foods Are More Than Magical
by author Siegfried Gursche, MH

The way things are going, within a few years we will be consuming more medicine than nutrients when we enjoy our food. Two mass forms of medication are already established - iodine in salt to prevent goiter and fluoride in water. Now the buzzwords are “functional foods.”

Functional foods are one of the fastest growing segments of the food industry. Millions of North Americans now start their day with calcium-enriched orange juice for breakfast in an attempt to prevent osteoporosis and strengthen their bones.

They eat Peace Cereal Vanilla Almond Crisp with Ginkgo and Gotu Kola (“a Herbal Brain Power Cereal”), one cup of which contains two milligrams of gingko leaf extract, to enhance mental performance. For an even more memorable breakfast, they choose Brain Gum with Ginkgo from KR Research in Reno, Nevada.

May I suggest a lunch of Hain’s Kitchen Prescription Soups with added St. John’s wort, a popular antidepressant, to keep you in a positive mood? During the day, a glass of Fresh Samantha’s Super Juice with Echinacea, a “defender of your health” as it says on the label, will protect you from catching a cold.

You might also choose xylitol-sweetened chewing gums and pastilles to fight cavities. Or look for bottled water with added oxygen. What a boon for athletes, prevention from running out of steam too early.

Functional foods have wide-ranging potential. What about a candy bar with herbal sedatives, such as valerian, for hyperactive kids? They would need a warning on the label, of course: “If more than one is eaten at a time, you may tire and fall off your bike.” Heart-damaging food containing trans fatty acids could be spiked with aspirin and touted as heart-protecting functional food.

But why limit yourself to food? Vitamin C, a free-radical scavenger, could be added to cigarette filters. Not only would the manufacturer offer a “cancer-risk reducing” cigarette, it might revitalize a shrinking market.

"Marketing," not "health," is the key word for functional food. To prove my point, let’s take a look at salt. We all have been cautioned to reduce our salt intake to keep blood pressure in check. A Finnish researcher, Professor Heikki Karppanen, developed a mineral salt product containing reduced sodium with added potassium and magnesium. He patented it as PanSalt in more than 20 countries and licensed it for sale in the US as CardiaSalt. CardiaSalt helps to balance the intake of minerals, which affect blood pressure. “The beneficial effects of PanSalt on blood pressure have been confirmed by many international studies,” says Karppanen.

The irony is that nature has provided us with a healthy salt that has never raised anyone’s blood pressure for thousands of years. Unrefined natural salt provides all the minerals that Karppanan added to his patented formula of refined salt. Natural sea salt with its grey appearance contains 84 elements, not just sodium chloride. Similarly, natural rock salt with its pink colour, sold in health food stores as “RealSalt,” shows significant amounts of calcium, potassium, sulphur, magnesium, iron, and more than 70 other trace elements.

Nature’s formula cannot be patented. Manufacturers such as those who make functional foods may be patenting their formulas to protect them for the sake of marketing and profit. But the final choice is yours - natural “real” foods or manufactured “functional” foods?

Siegfried Gursche, MH, is respected as a pioneer in the health food industry since 1954. The founder of Alive Publishing Group, he continues to educate and inspire people through book and magazine publishing.

Source: alive #255, January 2004

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