Functional foods: prospects in ukraine

Today, food is intended not only to satisfy hunger and provide necessary nutrients for human organism, but also to prevent nutrition-associated diseases and improve the mental and physical condition. The formula of food in the XXI century includes constant use of both traditional natural foods and foods with desired properties in the diet. The foods with desired properties are the functional food products, i. e. those enriched with essential food substances and micronutrients. These functional products cover a wide range of foods and ingredients with various biologically active substances responsible for their health-supporting and preventive effectiveness. This allows to lower the healthcare expenditures and support the economical development. The health and general well-being of today’s Ukrainians is influenced by many factors: rush life tempo, age-related changes in organs and tissues, heredity, unhealthy habits, stress situations etc. But the great importance of the diet and numbers and quality of products from which meals are prepared also should be kept in mind. And while we cannot change some factors, we can absolutely control others, particularly the characteristics of foods. The article presents some features of modern diet of Ukrainian population as an integral factor of health risk. Also, we show food substance consumption profiles of Ukrainian population in years 2015-2018, and the rate of functional foods on Ukrainian market in the last two years. The article is a review and highlights the necessity to develop production of functional foods based on fundamental and applied researches in food technology, nutritiology and the latest molecular biological technologies. General approaches to modern principles of functional food production technology are proposed. The role of the latest molecular biological technologies in functional food production is disclosed, especially of the proteomics, nutrigenomics and metabolomics. Important directions of functional food research are shown, they are associated with identification of new functional ingredients and increasing confidence of the consumers in such products. Motivations are proposed to stimulate the food manufactures to continue to develop the functional foods and to increase their assortment, thus providing a remarkable profit from successful products.