A new generation of foods and drinks designed to help reduce cancers and heart disease are set to appear on Britain’s supermarket shelves. A new European law will now allow food companies to make dramatic claims about the health-giving effects of their brands. Manufacturers are currently barred from claiming that a food can help prevent or treat illness, but are now planning to turn “functional foods” into a multibillion-pound industry. In advance of the new measures, major food companies are developing scores of new breakfast cereals, fruit and vegetable juices, dairy products and drinks. They will claim that these foods will cut heart disease, treat obesity, reduce food allergies and fight off infections, cut the risks of osteoporosis and joint disorders, and even help to prevent bowel or prostate cancers.

—TheIndependent.com, 4/17/05