Coined in the late 1990’s, the term functional food was first defined as any food that has a positive impact on an individual's health, physical performance or state of mind in addition to its nutritive values. The oft quoted “Let thy food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food,” ascribed to Hippocrates (400 BC), emphasizes the importance of nutrition to prevent or cure disease. More than two thousand years later, science has proven the ancient knowledge that what we eat has an indelible impact on our physical and mental well-being.
Whether you pull a product off the shelf at your local grocer and read the nutritional panel, or you Google the nutrients contained in an apple, you can discern the nutritional value of virtually everything you put in your body. Further online research will tell you possible side effects if your body is deficient in the essential nutrients each ingredient provides. With this knowledge at our fingertips, it’s no wonder people are gravitating en mass to superfoods and other functional foods to supplement their diets.
Consider this simple distinction: Consumption of nutrient-dense foods fuels your body with the energy you need to thrive, both physically and mentally. Whereas foods containing artificial ingredients require your body to burn energy to digest it, while depleting your cognitive faculties. Eating non-functional or “junk” food, has the exact opposite effect of satisfying your body’s hunger. The same rings true for your body’s need for hydration. If you satisfy your thirst by drinking soda (regardless of whether it’s loaded with processed sugar or artificial sweeteners), it further dehydrates the body, effectively doing the inverse of why you’re consuming it in the first place. Given the ridiculous state of what constitutes as food in our modern world, it’s no wonder the mental health crisis is at a fever pitch.
The human body is a miraculous organism, designed to be optimized through the food we feed it. This simple awareness is driving more and more people away from foods that contain empty calories, replacing them instead with nutrient-dense alternatives full of superfoods and adaptogens that nourish and uplift.. As we choose functional foods to optimize our physical well-being, so too we enhance our mental well-being — the importance of which cannot be overstated. With health in body and mind, life naturally attains a new level of harmony. This is worth everything.
Welcome to the functional food revolution! LET’S GO!