Nanosupplements: Improvements in Nutritional Functionality of Food Products

OSVALDO E. SPONTON; ADRIÁN A. PEREZ, MARCELO GRABOIS & LILIANA G. SANTIAGO

Food Applications of Nanotechnology

CRC Press

Lugar: Boca Raton; Año: 2019; p. 99 - 118

Nanotechnology applied to food processing and packaging or to the production nanoadditives results into nanofoods. Nanotechnology may be advantageous in improving the quality, safety, and nutritional value of products and reducing the cost. In addition, nanotechnology might provide specific characteristics to food such as texture and taste, other sensory properties, color, strength, processability, water solubility, stability during shelf life, and oral bioavailability of functional compounds. Nanotechnology is mainly used to design and produce food ingredients and additives and delivery systems for bioactive compounds in the form of nutraceuticals. Several important food industries are actively exploring the potential of use of nanotechnology in food production, with improved nutritional functionality. In addition, the use of nanotechnology in the agrofood sector is emergent and predicted to grow rapidly in the coming years. According to the current literature, there are two main categories of products/applications in which research is focused in this sense. The first one is nanotechnology applied to agricultural production to reduce the amounts of active ingredients in animal feeds (e.g., fortified with nanosupplements (NS), antimicrobial additives, and detoxifying materials). The second one is the application of nanotechnology to food process and includes the production of NS for direct consumption. In this chapter, a special attention is paid to human foods, whereas NS in animal feeds is also briefly described.