ABSTRACT
The awareness and understanding of the health-promoting abilities of edible natural materials, beyond their nutritional benefits, paved the way to a highly growing market of functional foods and natural functional ingredients worldwide. The space for marine nutraceuticals in this market is continuously increasing with the understanding of unique features of marine natural ingredients with wide array of health benefits. Until recent times, the key players of marine nutraceutical market were fish oil, carotenoids, and chitosan products. However, intensive research on identification and characterization of value added ingredients from marine resources has revealed an enormous capacity of marine nutraceuticals. Identification of active ingredients from marine macro-algae, micro-algae, microbes, and invertebrates is widely researched. Among these groups the potential use of active ingredients, specifically functional polysaccharides and peptides from edible marine invertebrates, is discussed in this chapter.
