The European Commission Concerted Action on Functional Food
Science in Europe (FUFOSE) establishes that food is ‘‘functional’’
whether its positive effects on one or more organism functions
are clearly proved so to be determinant for optimizing health conditions
and/or decreasing disease incidence, independently from
its nutritional capacity. Moreover, functional food should exert
its potential bioactivities through quantities usually planned in a
conventional dietary regimen (Diplock et al., 1999). Functional
foods can be divided into ‘‘conventional’’ and ‘‘modified’’. The first
category consists in foods whose bioactive components are original
constituents. The second category includes foods whose biological
potential has been technologically influenced through: addition
of bioactive compounds; removal of antinutrients or toxic
substances; replacement of original components with exogenous
bioactive ones; improvement of the bioavailability of original
bioactive constituents.