Modern food technologies, applied to the most recent scientific acquisitions in the nutritional field, have led to the creation of new food products.
In industrialized countries, the "lengthening of the average life span, a sedentary lifestyle, a" high-calorie and above all hyperlipidic diet, as well as the low consumption of fresh plant foods, therefore of dietary fiber, have favored the expression of chronic degenerative diseases, such as obesity, cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, diabetes and tumors.
Overeating associated with reduced exercise has led to a prevalence of overweight and obesity; this, together with the ideal of thinness proposed by the media, has favored the spread of improper low-calorie dietary models.
Changing dietary habits is not easy at all: for this reason the food industry has seized the opportunity to offer "Light" food products (lightened in nutrients, such as fats, the excess of which is considered harmful to health). and on the other "fortified" food products with mineral salts and vitamins (a classic example is given by the ACE fruit juice). These industrial processes are then contrasted by the diffusion of foods produced with natural or biological methods.
Currently, the identification in natural foods of substances, often non-nutritious, with specific functional properties, that is capable of inducing physiological effects potentially beneficial for health, is of particular interest; these foods are defined as functional foods or functional foods.
Alongside these foods, a "further category of food products is taking shape, called novel foods or innovative foods, which constitutes a heterogeneous group which also includes foods produced with the" help of "genetic engineering (GMOs).
In summary, the new food products existing on the market are:
1. natural and / or organic foods
2. whole foods
3. light foods (light)
4. fortified foods
5. functional food
6. innovative foods (novel food)
