Call me old-fashioned, but when I want the health benefits of a tomato, I eat a tomato. If I want more Omega-3 fatty acids in my meals, I sprinkle some flax meal on my morning oatmeal. And if I want the antioxidant power of blueberries, I eat blueberries.

That said, I sometimes buy eggs with extra Omega-3s and OJ with added calcium. But you'll probably never find a carton of OJ fortified with Omega-3s in my shopping cart.

Why? To me, it just seems weird.

Omega-3's, when added to eggs, come from the flax seed that's fed to the chickens. (And eggs from chickens fed a diet of greens and insects naturally contain more Omega-3s than those from chickens who eat grains and soybeans.) And that calcium in your OJ? It contains some naturally, and the rest comes from calcium hydroxide (usually via limestone). Not too "out there" for me. But the Omega-3's came from sardines and anchovies. While I love oily fish (mmm, mackerel), the (imperceptible) fish oil in my OJ seems a bit too "Mad Science" to me.

Functional foods (think extra calcium in your OJ) are commonplace in the American diet, and fortified foods (think 100% of the recommended daily allowances vitamins and minerals in breakfast cereal) have been around even longer. Ever hear of rickets, goiters or pellagra? Nope. You can thank Vitamin D in milk, iodized salt and B vitamins in flour for that. Those foods are fortified to keep us healthy.

Functional foods could be seen as a way to multitask your meals. You can get more nutritional bang for your buck from peanut butter that's been enriched with beet and kale powders. You can indulge in chocolate without the guilt when it contains broccoli, blueberry and watermelon.

Or they could be seen as "Frankenfoods," a strange marriage of food and science. Do you really need broccoli in your chocolate?

From the NYT:

Additionally, with recent rising costs in raw materials, flavorings and transport, many food companies are refocusing their research and development; instead of adding expensive ingredients like sun-dried tomatoes or honey-roasted almonds to existing products, the search is on for inexpensive “value-added” products that customers will pay extra for. Mars’s CocoaVia line of chocolate claims to offer health benefits because of high levels of antioxidants; an ounce of CocoaVia blueberry almond chocolate costs about $1.25, while an ounce of the same manufacturer’s Dove blueberry almond chocolate costs about 75 cents. In order to get the nutritional benefits from CocoaVia, the company recommends eating two bars a day — an investment of more than $700 and 4,000 fat grams in the course of a year.

Am I behind the times or a food purist? Are you a fan of multitasking functional foods? What is your limit for functional foods? Broccoli in your peanut butter? Spider silk in your milk? Better yet: What functional foods would you create if you could be a food scientist?