Journal of Community Nutrition
- 제1권2호
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- Pages.75-80
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- 1999
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- 1229-540X(pISSN)
Evaluation of Current Standards and Proposed Rules for Special Nutritional Foods
- Kim, Dong-Yeon (Department of Health Services Management, Korea Health Industry Development Institute)
- 발행 : 1999.11.01
초록
Special nutritional foods are one category of processed foods. In this category, 5 different food standards are defined in the current rule of the Korean Food Code ; that is, infant formulae, complementary foods for infants and young children, foods nutrient supplementation, processed dietary fiber-based foods, and foods for special dietary uses. The major differences between the special dietary uses. The major difference between the special nutritional foods and the other processed foods is that the special nutritional foods are characterized by their dietary uses for specific population groups rather than food ingredients or manufacturing and processing techniques which characterize and distinguish most of other processed foods. Although several countries establish similar standards for this type of foods, they use different legal names such as foods for special dietary uses(U.S.A., CODEX, Japan), foodstuffs intended for particular nutritional uses(EC), or special purpose foods(Australia). In addition, there are some other differences in the definitions for these food types and categorization of food types among countries. The major difference in the definitions is the description of 'special dietary uses' by specifying certain population groups whose nutrient requirements are different from those of ordinary men due to physiological or physical conditions and therefore may not be sufficiently met by consuming ordinary foods. The categorization of this type of foods is based on the type of dietary uses in the other countries, whereas we include foods simply supplemented with nutrients or foods having certain components such as dietary fibers even if these foods types do not have special dietary sues. Recently, a revision of standards for special nutritional food has been proposed. However, the description of 'special dietary uses' is not clearly indicated in the definition, and some food types which should not be categorized into the special nutritional foods still remain in this category. In order to correct these problems, the standard of food labeling in the Food Safety Law needs to be revised along with revision of food standards in the Food Code.