摘要：The main idea of our nutritional portal is currently based on health and trust. In order to maintain these, food industry has been closely following popular, scientific, technological and engineering innovations, and therefore, giving impetus to their R&D efforts. As a result of these efforts, functional food concept recently showed a substantional development. Considering the economic size of this concept, it represents a multi-billion-dollar budget. Basically, the message given by the term "functional" is based on the existence of health and metabolic benefits. This means that functional food market involves probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics, nutraceutics and those serve the purposes mentioned. However, there is a need to clarify a point within the related scientific field. Which term is more appropriate? Functional foods or functional components, or both of them? In what extent is it appropriate to identify a food presented to consumers as "functional food" if it includes components affecting human health adversely? In this article, the issue is discussed thoroughly with examples for clarification.
