11.   Companies that are not specific to the drug or natural-food business have noticed consumer interest in functional foods.

12.   Critics and those who market functional foods agree that most products probably do not have enough herbs to deliver the promised health benefits.

13.   Effectively marketing the functional foods that have some valid scientific evidence to back them has not been easy.

14.   Finally, companies plan to spread the risk, selling functional foods in many forms, including beverages.

15.   Functional food is regular food that has been engineered to address health problems.

16.   Functional foods are not regulated differently from conventional foods.

17.   Functional food used to mean breakfast cereal fortified with vitamins and minerals.

18.   Functional foods also do little to countermand trends that have stymied the packaged-goods market for decades.

19.   If there is demand for functional foods in America, companies will continue to make and market them.

20.   Lacking a legal definition of functional food, the FDA has acknowledged having trouble weighing the nutritional benefits of some new products.