Journal of Functional Foods is the official scientific journal of the International Society for Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods (ISNFF)
The International Society for Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods (ISNFF) has announced the establishment of the Fereidoon Shahidi Fellowship Award for graduate students. For further information about nominations and applications, please visit the ISNFF website: http://www.isnff.org.
The 2009 Annual Conference and Exhibition of the ISNFF will be held 31 October - 4 November 2009 in San Francisco. Two pre-conferences - on Antioxidants, and Omega 3 and Beyond - are also planned. Contact http://www.isnff.org for further information.

Journal of Functional Foods focuses on fundamental and applied research and functional foods product development and commercialization. The journal covers the fields of plant bioactives; antioxidants and ageing; dietary fibre, prebiotics and functional starches; probiotics and probiotic functional foods; functional lipids; bioactive peptides; vitamins, minerals and botanicals and other dietary supplements; functional beverages and food products; molecular nutrition and other relevant aspects of disease prevention and treatment.

Authors are encouraged to submit contributions on all types of functional foods, nutraceuticals and food supplements. The focus of the journal ranges from technical issues in the production of first-generation functional foods (e.g. vitamin supplements, fibre-enriched foods), and technology for the improvement of 'whole foods', to research in areas such as nutrigenomics, informing the next generation of functional foods.

Submission of Papers

Submission to Journal of Functional Foods proceeds totally online. Use the following guidelines to prepare your article. Via the homepage of this journal ( http://ees.elsevier.com/jff ) you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of the various files. The system automatically converts source files to a single Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted to PDF at submission for the review process, these source files are needed for further processing after acceptance. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, takes place by e-mail and via the author's homepage, removing the need for a hard-copy paper trail.

Authors are required to submit, with their manuscripts, the names and full contact details (including e-mail address) of 3 potential referees (who should not come from the same institute, and should not all come from the same country).

It is the author's responsibility to ensure that papers are written in clear and comprehensible English. Authors whose native language is not English are strongly advised to have their manuscripts checked by an English-speaking colleague prior to submission. Upon request, Elsevier will direct authors to an agent who can check and improve the English of their paper (before submission). Please contact authorsupport@elsevier.com for further information.

Submission of a paper implies that it has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the Publisher.

Review Policy
A peer review system involving two or three reviewers is used to ensure high quality of manuscripts accepted for publication. The Editor-in-Chief and Editors have the right to decline formal review of a manuscript when it is deemed that the manuscript is 1) on a topic outside the scope of the Journal; 2) lacking technical merit; 3) focused on foods or processes that are of narrow regional scope and significance; 4) fragmentary and providing marginally incremental results; or 5) is poorly written.

Submission of Revised Papers
Revised papers received more than three months after reviewers' comments were sent may be treated as new submissions, at the discretion of the Editor. If the author has not replied to reminders/enquiries about revisions within 6 months, the paper will be considered to have lapsed, and any subsequent submission will be treated as a new submission and must be submitted to the journal using the above process, addressed to the Editor-in-Chief, with an explanation that it had previously been submitted to the journal.

Types of Contributions

Original research articles, review papers, perspective commentaries and opinion pieces, and rapid communications.
1. Research papers - original full-length research papers which have not been published previously, except in a preliminary form, and which should not exceed 7,500 words (including allowance for no more than 6 tables and illustrations).
2. Review articles - will be accepted in areas of topical interest, will normally focus on literature published over the previous five years, and should not exceed 10,000 words (including allowance for no more than 6 tables and illustrations).
3. Perspective commentaries and opinion pieces - These should be concise, on hot topics and describe cutting-edge developments and technologies. They should not exceed 2000 words.
4. Rapid communications - Short communications of up to 3000 words, describing work that may be of a preliminary nature but which merits immediate publication.

Manuscript Preparation

General: Manuscripts must be typewritten, double-spaced with wide margins. Each page must be numbered, and lines must be consecutively numbered from the start to the end of the manuscript. A font size of 12 or 10 pt is required. The corresponding author must be identified with an asterisk and footnote (include a Fax number and E-mail address). Full postal addresses must be given for all co-authors. All other footnotes (except for table footnotes) should be identified with superscript Arabic numbers. The title of the paper should unambiguously reflect its contents. Where the title exceeds 70 characters a suggestion for an abbreviated running title should be given.

The Editors reserve the right to adjust style to certain standards of uniformity. Authors should retain a copy of their manuscript.

Manuscripts in general should be organized in the following order:
• Title (should be clear, concise, and should unambiguously reflect the paper's contents)
• Name(s) of author(s)
• Complete postal address(es) of affiliations
• Full telephone number, fax number and e-mail address of the corresponding author
• Present address(es) of author(s) if applicable
• Complete correspondence address to which the proofs should be sent
• Abstract - each paper must be submitted with an Abstract not exceeding 150 words, reporting concisely on the major findings. Many abstracting services use abstracts without modification, so this section should be comprehensible in its own right. References should not be cited. Abbreviations should be avoided; if absolutely necessary they must be defined.
• Introduction - briefly review important prior publications and state the reasons for the investigation being reported.
• Materials and methods - description of methods, equipment and techniques (including statistical treatments used in the research)
• Results
• Discussion (may be combined with the results section)
• Conclusions (must not reiterate any discussion or introductory comments, they must be genuine conclusions drawn from the results of the study).
• Acknowledgements and any additional information concerning research grants, etc.
• Appendix (e.g. list of abbreviations used)
• References
• Tables
• Figure captions
• Illustrations/figures.

Following the Introduction, authors are free to structure papers as appropriate. However, for the sake of clarity and uniformity, the above or similar section headings are recommended. If necessary, each section may be divided into further subsections, but do not use more than two levels for subtitles.

The Materials and Methods section must provide enough detail that a competent worker can repeat the experiments. However, detailed descriptions of well-known methods should be avoided in the experimental section. References to the relevant literature are sufficient. The Results section should present clearly and succinctly the most important research results including statistical significance of the data being reported. The Discussion should not be a compilation of current literature, but a consideration of the significance and consequences of the authors' present findings. Each paper should contain a paragraph of Conclusions summarising the main aspects of the research being reported.

Units: The SI system should be used for all scientific and laboratory data; if, in certain instances, it is necessary to quote other units, these should be added in parentheses. Temperatures should be given in degrees Celsius. The unit "billion" (10⁹ in America, 10¹² in Europe) is ambiguous and should not be used.

Symbols: Abbreviations for units should follow the suggestions of the British Standards publication BS 1991. The full stop should not be included in abbreviations, e.g. m (not m.), ppm (not p.p.m.), % and / should be used in preference to 'per cent' and 'per'. Where abbreviations are likely to cause ambiguity or may not be readily understood by an international readership, units should be put in full.

Current recognised (IUPAC) chemical nomenclature should be used, although commonly accepted trivial names may be used where there is no risk of ambiguity.

The use of proprietary names should be avoided. Papers essentially of an advertising nature will not be accepted.

Formulae and Equations
• Formulae must be typewritten, each on a separate line. Leave ample space around the formulae.
• Subscripts and superscripts should be clear.
• All symbols used in the formulae should be explained in the margin where they are first used. Take special care to show clearly the difference between zero (0) and the letter O, and between one (1) and the letter l.
• Give the meaning of all symbols immediately after the equation in which they are first used.
• For simple fractions use the solidus (/) instead of a horizontal line.
• All equations should be numbered serially at the right-hand side in parentheses.
• The use of fractional powers instead of root signs is recommended. Also powers of e are often more conveniently denoted by exp.
• Levels of statistical significance which can be mentioned without further explanation are P< 0.05, P< 0.01 and P< 0.001.
• In chemical formulae, valence of ions must be given as e.g. Ca²⁺ and CO^2- ₃, not as Ca⁺⁺or CO₃ ^--.
• Isotope numbers should precede the symbols, e.g. ¹⁸O.
• The repeated writing of complicated chemical formulae in the text is to be avoided where reasonably possible; instead, the name of the compound followed by its abbreviation (ethylene-diamine-tetra-acetic acid, EDTA) should be given in full. The abbreviation is to be used in the case of a very long name or in the case of a compound being described as the end product of a gravimetric determination (e.g. phosphate as P₂O₅).

References

Responsibility for the accuracy of bibliographic citations lies entirely with the authors. The manuscript should be carefully checked to ensure that the spelling of authors' names and dates are exactly the same in the text as in the reference list. Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list at the end of the manuscript (and vice versa).

All citations in the text should refer to:
1. Single author: the author's name (without initials, unless there is ambiguity) and the year of publication;
2. Two authors: both authors' names and the year of publication;
3. Three or more authors: first author's name followed by et al. and the year of publication.

Citations may be made directly or parenthetically. Groups of references should be listed first alphabetically, then chronologically. Examples: "as demonstrated (Allan, 1996a, b, 1999; Allan & Jones, 1995). Kramer et al. (2000) have recently shown...".

References cited together in the text should be arranged chronologically. The list of references must be arranged alphabetically on authors' names, and should be as full as possible, listing all authors, the full title of articles and full title of journals, publisher and year. Titles of periodicals mentioned in the list of references must be spelled out in full.

In the case of publications in any language other than English, the original title is to be retained. However, the titles of publications in non-Latin alphabets should be transliterated, and a notation such as '(in Russian)' or '(in Greek, with English abstract)' should be added.

References concerning unpublished data and 'personal communications' must not be cited in the reference list but may be mentioned in the text, giving the full details (name and affiliation of the contact). References included in the reference list as 'in press' should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication data with ';in press'. Citation of a reference as 'in press; implies that the item has been accepted for publication. In the final publication, material referenced as 'submitted'; is not acceptable - if it cannot be referenced as 'in press' then the text needs to be revised to state 'unpublished results' and the reference deleted from the reference list.

References should be given in the following form:
Wada, M., Kido, H., Ohyama, K., Kishikawa, N., Ohba, Y., and Kuroda, N. Evaluation of quenching effects of non-water-soluble and water-soluble rosemary extracts against active oxygen species by chemiluminescent assay, Food Chemistry 87 (2004), pp. 261-267.
Marasas, W. F. O. (1996). Fumonisins: History, worldwide occurrence and impact. In L. S. Jackson, J. W. DeVries, & L. B. Bullerman, Fumonisins in food, advances in experimental medicine and biology, vol. 392 (pp. 1-18). New York: Plenum Press.
Massart, D. L., & Kauffmann, L. (1983). Interpretation of analytical data by use of cluster analysis. New York: Wiley.
Noel, S., & Collin, S. (1995). Trans-2-nonenal degradation products during mashing. In Proceedings of the 25th European brewery convention congress(pp. 483-490). Oxford: IRL Press.

Citing and listing of web references. As a minimum, the full URL should be given. Any further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.

The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic documents. The DOI consists of a unique alpha-numeric character string which is assigned to a document by the publisher upon the initial electronic publication. The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore, it is an ideal medium for citing a document, particularly Articles in Press; because they have not yet received their full bibliographic information. The correct format for citing a DOI is shown as follows (example taken from a document in the journal Physics Letters B:
doi:10.1016/jphysletb.2003.10.071
When you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, they are guaranteed never to change.

Illustrations

Photographs, charts and diagrams are all to be referred to as "Figure(s)" and should be numbered consecutively in the order to which they are referred. They should accompany the manuscript, but should not be included within the text. All illustrations should be clearly marked with the figure number and the author's name. All figures are to have a caption. Captions should be supplied on a separate sheet. Tables should be numbered consecutively and given a suitable caption and each table typed on a separate sheet. Footnotes to tables should be typed below the table and should be referred to by superscript lowercase letters. No vertical rules should be used. Tables should not duplicate results presented elsewhere in the manuscript (e.g. in graphs).

If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable colour figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in colour on the web (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites) regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article. Please note: Because of technical complications which can arise by converting colour figures to "grey scale" (for the printed version should you not opt for colour in print) please submit in addition usable black and white prints corresponding to all the colour illustrations. As only one figure caption may be used for both colour and black and white versions of figures, please ensure that the figure captions are meaningful for both versions, if applicable.

Preparation of electronic illustrations
Submitting your artwork in an electronic format helps us to produce your work to the best possible standards, ensuring accuracy, clarity and a high level of detail.
General points:
• Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
• Save text in illustrations as "graphics" or enclose the font.
• Only use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Helvetica, Times, Symbol.
• Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
• Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
• Provide all illustrations as separate files.
• Provide captions to illustrations separately.
• Produce images near to the desired size of the printed version.

A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available on our website: http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions . You are urged to visit this site.

Preparation of Supplementary Data
Elsevier now accepts electronic supplementary material (e-components) to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the Author additional possibilities to publish supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect: http://www.sciencedirect.com. In order to ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, please ensure that data is provided in one of our recommended file formats. Authors should submit the material in electronic format together with the final version of the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each file. For more detailed instructions please visit our artwork instruction pages at: http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.

Proofs

When your manuscript is received at the Publisher it is considered to be in its final form. Proofs are not to be regarded as "drafts". One set of page proofs in PDF format will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author, to be checked for typesetting/editing. No changes in, or additions to, the accepted (and subsequently edited) manuscript will be allowed at this stage. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. A form with queries from the copy editor may accompany your proofs. Please answer all queries and make any corrections or additions required. The Publisher reserves the right to proceed with publication if corrections are not communicated. Return corrections within two working days of receipt of the proofs. Should there be no corrections, please confirm this. Elsevier will do everything possible to get your article corrected and published as quickly and accurately as possible. In order to do this we need your help. When you receive the (PDF) proof of your article for correction, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication. Subsequent corrections will not be possible, so please ensure your first sending is complete. Note that this does not mean you have any less time to make your corrections, just that only one set of corrections will be accepted.

Offprints

The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article and includes a coversheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use. Copies of the issue can be ordered at a specially reduced rate using the order form sent to the corresponding author after the manuscript has been accepted.

Copyright

Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to transfer copyright (for more information on copyright see http://authors.elsevier.com). This transfer will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. A letter will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript. A form facilitating transfer of copyright will be provided. If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use by authors in these cases: contact Elsevier Ltd., Global Rights Department, The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Oxford, OX5 1GB, UK; phone: (+44) 1865 843830, fax: (+44) 1865 853333, e-mail: permissions@elsevier.com

Author Enquiries

Authors can keep a track on the progress of their accepted article, by visiting http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle. Other questions or queries will also be dealt with via the website http://authors.elsevier.com . Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs, are provided when an article is accepted for publication. Do not contact the editors - they do not have access to this information.

Journal of Functional Foods carries no page charges