Pharma Foods and Beverages

Pharma Foods and Beverages

Lu (Cindy) Ma

Vancouver Island University

This paper was prepared forAP5, taught by Rita Naeschke.

Pharma Foods and Beverages

        When people shop at Walmart, diversified varieties of food and beverages confuse them because of different functions or efficacies. The best suggestion is that people look for foods or beverages they want after they read the nutrition facts on the packing bag carefully. With the development of food technology, pharma foods and beverages have become the prime choice of whom rather than the original or common products when people purchased bare necessities. What are the pharma foods and beverages? Generally, they are food products with pharmacological additive is meant to enhance health, which are vitamin fortified, functional, nutrient-added and genetic modified crops. All of these detailed terms illustrate that food contain health-giving additives and have medicinal benefit belong to pharma foods. Some people are enthusiastic of pharma foods and beverages because they consider the health factors. Other people are doubtful because of the possible side effects in pharma foods and beverages. It is a huge controversy and hard to decide which opinions consumers should choose. Although some researchers claimed that pharma foods and beverages have unsafe side effects, they should be supported by governments because pharma foods and beverages improve people’s health, are convenient and play an important role in treating illnesses.

Pharma foods and beverages are beneficial and improve people’s health. First of all, they enhance people’s body quality and function. In the past, fortified foods have solved health issues. Maria De Lourdes Samaniego-Vaesken, department of Pharmaceutical and Food Sciences, Elena Alonso-Aperte, faculty of pharmacy and Gregorio Varela-Moreiras, CEU San Pablo University, showed that iodized salt and vitamin D-fortified milk reduced the nutrient deficiencies among the wide population (2012, para. 4). Not only do they increase bodily quality, but Pharma foods and beverages also build better bodily functions. Improving digestion and bone density are best examples (“From,” 2012, para. 2). Simone Eussen et al. (2011), authors of Functional Foods and Dietary Supplements, stated that functional foods, as an aspect of pharma foods, can revamp the qualities of human and health level instead of basic nutritional impact (para. 2). In addition, pharma foods and beverages have made prominent impacts for specifically personal needs. In the article of “From farmer to pharma” (2012), it showed that scientists can add various nutrients from different species in food and tailor the food to  match specific demands through the genetic technology according to the genetic make-up of individuals (para. 4). As a matter of fact, Special groups get benefits from the additive nutriments in their foods. The elderly who lack of sun exposure and open field activity are supplied vitamin D to retard skin aging (Samaniego-Vaesken, Alonso-Aperte & Vareka-Moreiras, 2012, para. 34). To put it briefly, government should give this industry strong support because pharma foods and beverages provide more advantages to increase people’s body health level.