Biology Functional Foods

• Functional foods contain ingredients that contribute to your body's well-being. 

• We all carry 1KG of bacteria in our gut, some good some bad. Most of the time, the good and bad bacteria are balanced.  Good bacteria suppresses the activity of the bad.

• Things like stress, poor diet, and food poisoning can disturb the balance of bacteria in our gut.

Prebiotics and Probiotics boost the numbers of good bacteria over the bad.

• Prebiotics contain sugers called OLIGOSACCHARIDES which feeds the good bacteria, causing them to increase in numbers.

• Probiotics contain the good bacteria themselves, also causing them to increase in numbers in the gut. Probiotics are produced by fermentation of milk and other foods. Prebiotics are not produced by fermentation.

• Stanol Ester comes from plant sterols- fatty substances found naturally in foods like wheat and maize.

• Studies show that if a person includes plant sterols in their diet might experience their cholesterol falling by 10% in a year!

• Benecol is an example of a functional food that contains stanol ester.