Abstract:

According to the legal concept, functional foods, also known as health foods, are considered as a variety of foods.
Food materials, including ordinary foods, food additives and novel food materials, can be widely used as main and subsidiary
materials of functional foods. Data sources from the website of the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA), which is
now China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA), were used in this study to classify and count the main and subsidiary
materials of all registered functional foods from 2005 to 2013. Furthermore, the frequency of use of general food materials,
food additives and novel food materials was calculated in those functional foods. The results showed that only limited
varieties of general food materials were used, food additives were commonly involved in subsidiary materials and novel food
materials were applied very frequently. By referring to recent advances in this field at home and overseas, the cause of this
phenomenon was preliminarily discussed and some suggestions on how to improve it were proposed as well. Moreover, the
prospects for the future application of food materials in functional foods were outlined.

Key words: functional food, health food, ordinary food, food additive, novel food material