At a meeting held on December 5th in College Park, MD, FDA listened to the testimony of 14 people from government agencies, industry and consumer groups state their views on functional foods and how they should be regulated.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) claims functional foods will rake in close to $50 billion in sales by 2010—proof that functional foods have finally reached a point of critical mass, making the market and its products ripe for debate. Right now this class of foods has a good chance of reaching the $50 billion mark, provided the regulations currently governing them remain untouched, or refined so as to encourage more research and innovation, as suggested by many groups at the December 5th hearing like the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), Chicago, IL, and the American Herbal Products Associations (AHPA), Silver Spring, MD. But if groups like the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), Washington, D.C., have their way the regulations will become more restrictive in terms of the ingredients allowed in such products and their subsequent marketing, health claims included.

In a statement issued the same day, the Natural Products Association (NPA), Washington, D.C., attributed the high interest in these products of late to their rapid proliferation in the mass market. “The growth of functional foods in the mass market, coupled with increased availability of health information, often makes for unbalanced and provocative media attention, causing undue concern regarding the appropriate regulatory checks and balances,” it said.

There are two sides to the functional foods battle. The industry-supported position is that functional foods could potentially have enormous public health benefits if the regulations are refined and enforced, while the other side views functional foods in the context of energy drinks, being no more beneficial than concoctions containing water, sugar and caffeine. Adding to the latter, CSPI’s Bruce Silverglade believes “the food industry is pressuring the Bush Administration to extend already weak standards for dietary supplement ingredients and label claims to these newfangled products. That approach would make functional foods, a potentially useful idea, about as dependable as 19th century snake oil.” He described functional foods in the present market environment as ‘dysfunctional’ foods.

Mr. Silverglade went on in his testimony to highlight new products like Enviga—a recent joint venture launch from Nestlé and Coca-Cola—as violating current laws. In fact, the day before its testimony on functional foods, it released a statement warning that it would sue the makers of Enviga if they continue to market the drink with “fraudulent calorie-burning and weight loss claims.” “They should have called this drink ‘Fleece,’ since that’s what they’re trying to do to consumers. Plain old tap water has zero calories, five calories fewer than Enviga, but unlike Enviga, tap water doesn’t cost 15 bucks a gallon.”

FDA plans to review all comments once they have been submitted, the deadline for which is January 5th.