Production of poultry meat and eggs as functional food: Challenges and opportunities

In the last decades people became highly aware of the connection between food and health, especially in developed countries of Europe and USA. Food can only be considered functional if together with its basic nutritional impact it has beneficial effects on human health. It must improve general conditions and/or decrease the risk of the disease. Functional foods should be enhanced with added ingredients not normally found in the product, providing health benefits beyond their nutritional value. Functional foods are intended to be consumed as part of the normal diet but offer the potential of enhanced health or reduced risk of disease. Functional food could be rich in vitamins, omega-3 fatty acids or antioxidants. Poultry meat and eggs have a potential to be considered as a functional food because of the high level of conversion of beneficial nutrients from feed to poultry products. Enrichment of eggs is more pronounced than enrichment of meat because of the higher fat content. Current position and future opportunities of poultry products in production of functional food will be consider in this paper.