Maximizing the health benefits of functional foods through microencapsulation techniques

Abstract

Functional foods offer physiological health benefits and disease prevention over and above their nutritional contribution. Adding bioactive ingredients to functional foods presents many challenges, particularly with respect to the stability of the bioactive compounds during processing and storage and the need to prevent undesirable interactions with the carrier food matrix. The recent tools used for protecting and delivering bioactives in the development of functional foods are microencapsulation techniques.