Nowadays every aisle of the grocery store brims with foods and drinks claiming preventive and healing powers through added nutrients.

These enhanced or functional products claim to boost your immune system, keep your heart healthy, muscle up your memory, keep you, ahem, regular—even make your skin healthier and younger looking. Or so they say.

Should you drink orange juice or spread margarine with omega-3s? Eat breakfast cereal with added fiber? Consume yogurt with probiotics? Especially when the amped-up varieties can cost more money? The answer? Probably.

“We’d like to see consumers get all their nutrients from whole foods,” says functional foods researcher Roger Clemens, DrPH, professor at the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy. “But it’s clear our lifestyles make that difficult. We run between meetings and soccer games, we’re getting on a plane. It’s extremely difficult.”

What’s more, allergies as well as our distaste for certain foods may cause us to fall short on the most powerful disease-averting food compounds that come primarily from fruits and vegetables, grains, fish and low-fat dairy, Clemens and others say.

So we’re increasingly turning to functional foods—those with added vitamins, minerals, herbs, antioxidants and plant compounds—to get our nutrition or to fix our problems, from managing stress and low energy to preventing heart attacks. And added nutrients are big business. Americans on average spent $90 each in 2007 on functional foods, or $27 billion total. That’s an increase of 33% from 2002, according to market research firm Datamonitor.

The key is taking stock of the foods you regularly eat to see where you fall short, says Kerry Neville, a registered dietician and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. (Mypyramid.gov is a good place to start if you need help.)

Let’s say you need more calcium, for example. Choose a functional food like orange juice to fill the gap. OJ alone comes in dozens of nutrient-added choices: calcium and vitamin D, extra vitamin C, a dose of omega-3s or fiber—to say nothing about pulp or no pulp.

Or say you don’t eat fish but you do eat margarine. Then consider spending a few cents extra on margarine fortified with omega-3s (and without trans fats).

Just don’t overdo it, Neville cautions. Orange juice packs a lot of sugar and “with calorie- and fat-rich foods like a canola oil or margarine, eating more of that food just so that you can get your omega-3s is not a good idea.”

When you’re intrigued by the food or drink label claim, experts say to check the nutrition facts panel first to get a complete picture of the product’s healthfulness.

Also watch out for extra vitamins in functional foods if you’re already taking a multivitamin. You can get too much of a good thing.

Still not sure how to incorporate these foods into your diet? Read on for an expert explanation of some of the most popular functional nutrients.

The essential fatty acids in omega-3s (DHA, EPA and ALA) help prevent heart attacks by reducing the LDL or bad cholesterol and are found in flax seeds, walnuts, winter squash and beans. But our bodies get the biggest omega-3 nutritional bang from fish —namely, salmon, but also mackerel, lake trout and other cold-water fishes.

Experts recommend that adults eat two servings of fatty fish, such as salmon, each week, or get at least 600 mg of omega-3s from other sources. If you don’t eat omega-rich fish, choose the omega-3 versions of foods you already like to eat, or take fish oil or algae oil pills. (The latter is a good option for vegetarians.) You can get half the recommended amount from a tablespoon of omega-3-fortified margarine. You’ll get 50 mg from 8 ounces of omega-3-fortified orange juice. And omega-3s are making their way into breads, frozen waffles, yogurt, eggs, vegetable oils and a host of other foods.

Keep in mind that some omega-3s in functional foods are either synthetically or naturally derived, says Patti Coggins, PhD, research professor at Mississippi State University’s Department of Food Science, Nutrition and Health Promotion. The synthetic versions have only about 50% of the potency of the naturally occurring omega-3s, Coggins says. Foods labeled as “natural” usually have naturally derived omega-3s, she says.

No matter how you do it, get your omega-3s. Science continues to reveal other health benefits of omega-3s, including improved immune function, skin health and mental performance.


We get dietary fiber from a wide range of fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains. Fiber can lower cholesterol and blood sugar levels, which can help to prevent heart disease and diabetes.

But Americans only get half the fiber we need. Women age 50 and younger should get 25 grams a day (21 grams for women older than 50), according to the USDA. It takes a lot of food to get this daily requirement: one pear, one apple, one cup each of cooked broccoli and green beans, a cup of oatmeal and two cups of popcorn!

You can also get added fiber from a range of fortified foods, including yogurt, orange juice, cereals and breads, pastas, granola bars and energy bars. But because the “added fiber” is typically only about 3 grams a serving, your money may be better spent on whole food sources or a fiber supplement, Coggins says. If you choose a supplement, Coggins suggests buying soluble or a combination of soluble and insoluble fibers: “It’s soluble fibers that dissolve into the bloodstream and pull out the sticky lipids (that lead to) high cholesterol.”

Health for Women columnist and obesity expert Michael F. Roizen, MD, PhD, chair of the Wellness Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, also favors whole food sources of fiber, “but if you look at Americans overall, we don’t get enough fiber,” he says. So he doesn’t worry how you get it so long as you do. “There are 1,000 ways to skin the cat,” he says.


Science suggests that antioxidants like beta-carotene, lycopene, vitamins A, C, and E, and other nutrients including selenium, zinc, garlic, omega-3s and a range of other phytonutrients help protect us from illness. Just how much isn’t known. Roizen says to be skeptical about any food or drink that claims to “boost immunity.” Whole fruits and vegetables are your best guard against illness, he says.

The use of probiotics, or good bacteria, is one of the hottest trends in functional foods right now. From the dairy case to the bakery, you’ll find probiotics “for digestive health and immunity.”

Some science backs the power of probiotics, which has long been available in natural foods stores as a supplement. But doctors and dieticians say there isn’t enough research yet to draw broad conclusions about whether probiotic-enhanced foods are worth the extra money. “That’s an evolving area of science,” Neville says, noting that some forms of bacteria are better than others. “I think probiotics can be beneficial but you can’t count on it.”

For centuries, women have forked over cash for all kinds of skin treatments, from simple creams to cosmetic surgery. So why wouldn’t we sip and chew our way to softer, more youthful looking skin? Enter “cosmeceuticals” and the concept of “healing skin from within.” The trend is just piquing consumer awareness here in the U.S., where skin care product maker Borba has staked its claim with waters and gummy bear chews that claim to improve your skin.

Borba is “overall a good product,” says New York dermatologist Doris Day, MD, Director of the Day Cosmetic, Laser and Comprehensive Dermatology in New York City, but the price is a turn-off. A 12-bottle case of the infused waters, which Borba suggests you consume daily, costs $36; a package of 136 bears costs $25.

Across the spectrum of beauty products, active ingredients include grape seed and green tea extracts, antioxidant flavonoids from exotic fruits like guanabana, noni berries and Açaí berries (also popular on the juice aisle), as well as a range of vitamins and minerals.

More beauty foods are popping up across the globe. In Japan, you can buy collagen-fortified marshmallows and soups, explains Kara Nielsen, a market trendologist with the Center for Culinary Development, which helps food companies develop new products. Coca-Cola makes a milk-based beauty drink, Yokuasa Purun, that Japanese women are encouraged to drink before bed since it’s supposed to promote beauty during sleep.

The United Kingdom has sparkling waters fortified with beauty vitamins and antioxidants, Nielsen says. And in France, a collagen producer just launched a collagen-infused smoothie.
“I think the best you can do [for your skin] is try to eat fruits and vegetables in season and to keep it simple, look for color,” Day says. “Every color represents a different plant source of antioxidant that not only protects the particular fruit or vegetable from the sun’s damaging rays and other insults, but can also be used by our bodies, and our skin, to protect us as well.”

It all sounds too good to be true and perhaps it is. Science and time will tell.

About the Author: Kelly Dwyer is a freelance writer based in Denver, CO.