Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food is the need of the hour. This phrase was coined by Hippocrates around 2,500 years ago and has become a topic of extravagant research in the past few years across the world. Medicines are aimed to cure or prevent discrete symptoms of ailments and are the last solution to cure or prevent disease.
However, consumption of medicinal food products is an alternative therapy to stay fit and healthy and is emerging as one of the leading food market worldwide. Medicinal food products also known as ‘functional food’ or ‘nutraceuticals’ are food products or food constituents that may provide benefits beyond basic nutrition.
Changes in lifestyle and awareness of consumers have shifted their concern from eating just food to seeking added benefits in all that they drink or eat which is pushing the functional food market. According to Statista Company Database, by 2022, the worldwide revenue for functional foods is projected to increase to over US$440 billion from about $300 billion in 2017.
Bread is one of the oldest man-made food consumed and relished in large parts of the world. However, development of functional bread started around the year 2000 and first white functional bread called “Blue Band Goede” was manufactured in 2003 by British-Dutch industry with functional ingredients like fibre, vitamins, zinc and inulin. Bread being staple food for many people in the world, medicinal bread will be a healthy alternative in the bread market.
Ingredients like fibre-rich compounds, phenolic antioxidants, prebiotics, minerals, vitamins and essential fatty acids are most commonly used to produce functional bread. The functional components are naturally present in food products but the concentration at which they direct health benefits may not be biologically available. Therefore, fortifying bread with these functional ingredients will be a healthy approach to provide basic nutrition as well as maintain the well-being of people.
However, addition of functional ingredients in bread may hamper sensory as well as physical properties of the bread matrix. Therefore, it is very important to standardise the formulations and compare the sensory properties of medicinal bread with conventional bread to assess consumer acceptability.
Many functional breads like rye bread, healthy crown bread (a bread containing multiple flours), quinoa bread, whole grain bread, fig and oatmeal bread, carrot rolls bread, calcium enriched bread, collagen bread, blended herb bread, vitamin fortified bread, low calorie bread and low sodium bread are available on the shelves of the market worldwide.
Health claims and benefits
Extensive research in the area of functional foods in the past two decades has proved the medicinal properties of food constituents in the treatment, prevention and curing of diseases. The change in lifestyle of the people, increased sense of personal responsibility for healthcare, increased information on relationship between diet and health has caused the researchers and food nutritionists to develop foods beyond basic nutrition. These food products may help reduce the risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, inflammation, type II diabetes and so on.
As a conclusion, the availability of medicinal bread on the shelves of market will play a central role to feed and maintain the health of large community owing to their nutritional and medicinal properties. However, it is important to study the interaction of functional ingredients with constituents of bread and their medicinal effect throughout their storage life. Moreover, the price of the medicinal bread should be reasonable as it is food first then medicine.
“Medicinal foods not only fill the stomach but also nurture the soul and heal the body”
(The authors are assistant professors at Department of Dairy Technology, College of Dairy Science & Technology, Guru Angad Dev Veterinary &
Animal Sciences University, Punjab. They can be contacted at venus3b3@gmail.com)