27-3 |
Trends in Chinese functional foods |
Y. W. HUANG, Dept. of Food Science & Technology, Univ. of Georgia, 204 Food Science Bldg., Athens, GA 30602 Traditional Chinese functional foods include 77 Chinese health authority recognized commonly used foodstuffs with medicinal effect. Those foodstuffs have been called the first generation functional food. Their origins may be fungus, parts of the plant such as the fruit, seed, leaf, root or flower, or parts of animals. Although many research and efforts have been done or are being done to extract the effective components from the primary foodstuff, more uses of those foodstuffs are concentrated on the preparation of therapeutical dishes, either regular daily diet or beverages. Preparation of food for consumption is an important part of the Chinese culture. Emphases are not only on color, aroma, and taste of a dish, but also on a balance of the ying and yang (for example, foods can be classified as cold, cool, warm and hot properties). Alimentotherapy has a long history in the practice of the Chinese medicine; however, the predominated products are either main dishes or beverages. In recent years, the trend for the preparation of traditional Chinese functional food has been shifted to the preparation of snack foods in both steamed or baked forms. Development of functional snack food products by using primary foodstuff as ingredient is a unique approach. This approach is quite different from just adding extracts or concentrates into the formulation. This presentation will introduce some popular functional snack food products and discuss their processing technology and the future direction.
Session 27, Developing technologies on functional ingredients for improving the health benefits of Asian foods
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