Food is essential for health and well-being. It provides nutrients and energy for growth, development, reproduc- tion, and activity. An adequate balance and quantity of nutrients, energy, and other components must be obtained from the different foods that make up the diet. In general, the composition and adequacy of the overall diet, rather individual foods, are critical to health outcomes. This is reflected in the basic tenet of nutrition that there is no such thing as a good or bad food, only good or bad diets. It has been suggested that technological develop- ments in food processing and in the analysis of the rela- tionship between food and health may combine to chal- lenge the conventional classification of the relationship between food and health. For example, developments in molecular biology and genetics may increase scientists’ understanding of the knctional relationship of nutrients and biologically active food ingredients to the achieve- ment of optimum health throughout the life cycle and the prevention and treatment of chronic disease. It has been claimed that better knowledge of the genetic basis of cer- tain diseases and of individuals’ genetic profiles will make it possible to tailor individual nutritional interventions to the prevention and treatment of such diseases.’