ABSTRACT
Encapsulation is a widely utilized food-preservation technique to entrap various active food ingredients (core materials) within carrier materials to protect it from various external agents. This specific practice is considered as a potential candidate to provide efficient delivery of bioactive compounds into a food system, which further helps in the minimization of food waste. It is noteworthy to mention that there are many advantages of this specific technique to protect and preserve the food products such as it acts as a barrier for the core materials (active agents) against external environment including gaseous agents, light, heat, and so on and the technique also helps to provide tailored-made food property with the aid of encapsulating agents (external phase material). The external phase materials for the encapsulation of a food compound should be food grade, biocompatible, and have the capacity to form a barrier between the external environment and the internal phase. The various available coat materials include carbohydrates (cellulose and derivatives, chitin and chitosan, starch, agar, alginate, carrageenan, gums, and pectin), proteins, lipid, and waxes. The present chapter details the various available materials as encapsulating agents (polysaccharides, proteins, and lipids) to encapsulate antioxidants, artificial sweeteners, flavoring agents, and others. Additionally, the various available techniques including spray drying, spray cooling, spray chilling, freeze drying, melt extrusion, melt injection, and others are widely utilized to develop encapsulates of food 20products. The chapter also focuses to discuss the details of the experimental procedures and related advantages and shortcomings of the existing techniques of encapsulation.
