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Edited by Finfood - Finnish Food Information, Helena Sinikallio
Original text by Päivikki Savola, courtesy of thisisFINLAND (finland.fi)
Finland is considered the world leader in the development of functional or health-enhancing foods, the Silicon Valley of functional foods. A strong tradition of pre-emptive health care has made clinical nutrition a natural subject for Finnish research. Considerable investment in research in this field has led to significant discoveries and the emergence of new companies in the sector. The demand for functional foods is expected to just keep on growing.
The Finnish diet has been astonishingly functional throughout the ages. Our forefathers cultivated rye, oats and barley and dried the crops for the long winter ahead, when they were used to make porridge or fermented bread. They picked berries in the woods in the summer, preserved lingonberries for the winter and looked for cranberries under the melting snow in early spring. If the crops failed, pine bark was added to the bread or fresh new spruce shoots eaten in the spring. In the summer, milk was preserved by fermenting it. From today's perspective, food contained a large amount of fibre, flavonoids, lignans, pro- and prebiotics.
Functional foods have not as yet been defined by legislation in Europe. Generally, functional foods are considered to be products which, in addition to their nutritional function, have been scientifically proven to enhance health or prevent illness. Whether a consequence of the traditional Finnish diet or of the widespread dietary diseases which became common in the 1950s, health-enhancing foods are today an area of special expertise in Finnish food science. In addition to our international flagships - Benecol, Xylitol and Lactobacillus GG - many other functional food products less well known abroad have been developed in this country.
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Xylitol is the first Finnish functional food ingredient whose health impact has been scientifically proven. Xylitol sprang onto the world stage when the study by Finnish Professors Arje Scheinin and Kauko Mäkinen proved the inhibitory effect of xylitol on dental caries in the early 1970s.
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Finland's biggest dairy company Valio has been a long-time forerunner in probiotics research, commercialization and marketing. Valio R&D is one of the most highly regarded food industry research units in the world.
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One of the brightest stars among Finnish functional foods is Benecol®, the first ever commercial food ingredient to utilise the specific effect of plant sterols on cholesterol absorption. The first commercial food product, margarine with added plant stanol ester was launched in Finland in November 1995. This launch of Raisio Group was accompanied by the publication of a 12 month double-blind clinical study, carried out as part of the North Karelia project, in the acclaimed New England Journal of Medicine.
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Along with cancer, cardiovascular diseases are today the most common cause of premature death. Unfavourable eating habits in Finland in the 1950s, caused the incidence of these diseases to grow. Besides cholesterol, a high salt content in food has been shown to present a significant cardiovascular risk. As early as the 1970s, Professor Heikki Karppanen developed a mineral salt product containing reduced sodium and added potassium and magnesium. Once it was discovered how to disguise the taste of mineral salt, production of the very successful Pansalt began in Finland in the 1980s.
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Tornio-based Aromtech Oy is a Finnish company manufacturing nutraceutical products and functional food ingredients. It is the first company in the Nordic countries to introduce Supercritical Fluid Extraction (SFE) into the health product sector. The advantage of SFE technology is that it is non-destructive - the extraction retains the original composition of the compounds and no unnatural ingredients enter the products.
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Finns have traditionally consumed a great deal of rye. The health-promoting effects of fibre, minerals and B-group vitamins in rye bread have long been known. The research findings of Professor Herman Adlercreutz of the University of Helsinki show that rye reduces the risk of cancer. These beneficial effects are attributed to the lignans contained in rye bran. The research has received international attention and interest in rye is growing. In summer 1999, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized the health claim concerning the link between whole-grain products and reduced risk of cancer of the large intestine.
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Digestive disorders and malabsorption have always been taken seriously in Finland, and there is a variety of special products on the market for those following a special diet. Lactose intolerance is common in Finland. Valio was among the first in the world to develop low-lactose products and it has several patents for manufacturing these products. Today its range of low-lactose products is the widest in the world. Valio has also developed and patented a chromatographic method for the production of fully lactose-free milk products.
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