Finnish Fooddities #4: Functional foods

Jokapäiväistä Leipää (Daily Bread) has plenty of visitors from foreign countries as well, even though it's mainly written in Finnish. Most of these visits are probably made by Finns abroad, but I want to give something for potential Nonfinns :)

This is athe 4th post in series called Finnish Fooddities and it is about Finnish food oddities. Hopefully you'll enjoy it! Check out the first, second and third posts too!

Apparently Finland is one of the leading countries what becomes to Functional Food, some might even say Finland is the world leader in developing of healt-enhancing foods.

And by this, we do not mean foods that could be considered as super foods (blueberries) ny they nature, but scientifically produced foods. Products that have added calsium or vitamins or omega-3 fatty acids or fiber. So it could be said that Finnish like to process the hell out of their food and then add something else to that food. If that isn't odd, what is?

Kuva: Valio

Ok, we do live in the dark so our vitamin supply could be poor and we aren't there healthiest people in the world, so there probably is subscription in with our names on it in this business. High cholesterol is a bitch and Finnish company Raisio has perfected their Benecol products that it mind. Healthy diet without functional gimmicks would slam that bitch though. Benecol is one of those flagship products internationally, just like Xylitol and Lactobacillus GG, Real Goodness™.

We are probably the best abusers of functional foods as well, because somehow people start to think that it's ok to eat light cheese three times as much as the regular one. Or add huge amount of odd prodcuts with omega-3 and 6 to our kids diets and grease their arteries... there are natural sources of those fatty acids! Nuts! Salmon! I'm trying to say that we easily add too much, because "it must be healthy". So the demand is probably going to keep on growing.

I like to think that many of these products are mindfucktional and marketing gimmicks. I believe that real butter and other real things like real fish with that omega-3 and dietary fibers from plums are mindfunctional foods, those real functional foods. Just like nature intended.

In Europe functional foods have not yet been defined by legislation, like they have in countries like Canada, Sweden and the United States. However these products have to be scientifically proven to enhance health of prevent illness, no matter what I say.

Have you tried anything functional to eat? Are you famialiar with Benecol, Xylitol or Real Goodness™?