Functional foods: A health simulacrum

The paper addresses the issue of so-called functional foods, i.e. a specific type of health foods. The basic idea is that the claims made in the framing of these products have the character of modem myths. The myth structure discursively obscures the ideologically loaded scientific/medical premises on which the claims are resting. Rather than being healthy in an absolute sense, these products are mimicking an abstract idea of healthiness-they are a health simulacrum.