Functional Foods and Why Eating Them Are So Beneficial

Functional Foods, aka Nutraceuticals.

Aemen Farooq
4 min readApr 20, 2022
Photo by Pablo Merchán Montes on Unsplash

Surely you know healthy foods are essential for maintaining good health and that multivitamins and supplements can boost the value of your daily nutritional intake. But have you heard of foods that are not only healthy but high in functional benefits that are sometimes considered supplements themselves?

They are called Functional Foods, aka Nutraceuticals.

Functional foods contain significant amounts of specific compounds that increase the value of health impact beyond the metabolic components such as carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.

For example, oatmeal, a functional food, contains soluble fiber content that can actively reduce cholesterol levels, making it a good option for cardiovascular health. In addition, there are artificially fortified foods like orange juice with extra calcium and vitamin D to support bone health.

The FDA strongly regulates what food companies can claim about the benefits of these fortified foods. That being said, new studies aim to show that functional foods such as oatmeal contain compounds that effectively improve health metrics.

There are many benefits of implementing functional foods into our daily diets. These benefits range from…

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Aemen Farooq

I write about mental health, self-development, self-care, and life lessons as they happen. Editor of sapphirel.com/ https://aemenfarooq.medium.com/membership