ABSTRACT
Scientific progress over the past 100 years has allowed researchers to better understand the biological origin of disease and the metabolism of food at the cellular level. The role of the vast majority of food components in disease prevention and health promotion is becoming clearer to scientists (Palzer, 2009). Consumers are also becoming increasingly aware of the relationship between diet and health, and now have some knowledge to be able to select foods, from a wide range of sources, that either inherently contain health-enhancing functional ingredients or have those ingredients included via fortification (Taneja and Singh, 2012). Thus, the demand for a balanced diet and functional food products that address specific health benefits is steadily growing. Health promotion can then take place either by increased consumption of foods that
Contents 12.1 Introduction ..........................................................................................233 12.2 Functional foods: An overview ............................................................235 12.3 Challenges associated with functional food development..................238 12.4 Encapsulation systems..........................................................................239 12.5 Nanotechnology applications in food ..................................................242 12.6 Nanotechnology-based food delivery systems ....................................244 12.7 Liposomes .............................................................................................245 12.8 Nanoemulsions .....................................................................................246 12.9 Microemulsions ....................................................................................249 12.10 Solid lipid nanoparticles ...................................................................... 251 12.11 Protein nanoparticles ...........................................................................253 12.12 Nutrigenomics and nutrigenetics .........................................................254 12.13 Concluding remarks .............................................................................256 References .......................................................................................................256
