Regulation of nutritional and health claims made on food in the European Union

Abstract

The development of foodstuffs and their components that provide a benefit beyond their traditional nutritional value has aroused considerable academic, commercial and legislative interest in recent decades. We are speaking here, among other denominations applied, of functional, fortified and nutraceutical foods. The challenge for society is to ensure that such foods and their components are of good quality, safe and efficacious, and that their marketing does not entail a fraud on consumers’ economic interests. In many cases there are still scientific challenges that have not been satisfactorily resolved, both in the identification of active elements, such as in the mechanisms of absorption, distribution and metabolism in the organism, in addition to uncertainties from the possible interaction of the various additives inter se and their possible physiological potentiations [9]. The situation can fairly be described as a scientific, health, economic and legal challenge.