Relationship between Understanding of Food Function and Individual Differences in Nutritional Knowledge

Abstract

A new functional food-labeling system was implemented in April 2015 in Japan. However, it is not yet fully understood how Japanese consumers recognize food function. It is desirable that various stakeholders' understandings of food function are identical in order to enable consumers to be healthy by choosing functional food. In the present study, we aimed to explore the relationship between nutritional knowledge and understanding of food function among various food experts and health-minded consumers. From the results of a questionnaire about nutritional knowledge, we extracted three clusters of stakeholders. Further, we found differences between these clusters in the number of words and in the content of open-ended answers for the questionnaire on food function. These results provide a useful reference for the promotion of an appropriate understanding and use of functional food.