Posts Tagged ‘Benefits of Prebiotics’
Benefits of Prebiotics and Probiotics (Part 1)
Functional foods are those which, besides its nutritional, show that exert beneficial physiological effects in the body, thus improving the health and welfare of people and even reducing the risk of certain diseases. Prebiotics and probiotics are the two types of functional food ingredients that most well known and studied, being and acting in a different way, achieve a profit similar to “promote intestinal health.”
1. Functional foods
Functional foods are those with a healthy addition to our diet. In addition to foods that naturally contain functional ingredients, food is traditional to the food industry has added, deleted, increased or modified any of its components to contribute to improve the functionality of the organism as a whole (hence is his name).
Among the fortified functional foods that most often we are in the market include milk, yogurt, juices, cereals, eggs, margarine, bread, salt, etc. The components most often added to these products are minerals (calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, iron, selenium), vitamins (A, D, E, C, folic acid), fiber, fatty acids ( oleic acid, omega-3, or conjugated linoleic acid CLA), antioxidants (isoflavones, carotenoids, selenium, vitamin E), phytosterols (plant sterols and stanols), phytoestrogens, prebiotics, probiotics.