Nano-food Technology and Nutrition

Abstract

Applications of nano-technology to food have recently arisen, despite regulatory considerations, safety and environmental impact, and consumer acceptance. Indeed, nano-foods will have a new era in food technology and will have a huge impact on food sustainability accompanied by health and environmental benefits. Many of the benefits such as improvements in food quality, food safety or shelf life extension offer enormous potential for improvement of public nutrition and health. Several areas centered on nano-sizing micronutrients, using nano-materials to encapsulate and deliver bioactive food components, functionalising nano-particles for biosensing of food borne microbials and innovative packaging to enhance nano-food safety against pathogens have been emitted. The current level of nano-foods in the global food sector is, however, only small and most products are still at research and development stage. However, there may be a need for a pragmatic regulatory oversight in countries to ensure a case-by-case pre-market evaluation of the nano-technology-derived products to safeguard the consumer from any potential risks. There are also some major knowledge gaps in regard to our current understanding of the properties, behaviour and effects of nano-materials. Therefore, this chapter focused on the innovations of nano-based food technologies in terms of food processing, packaging and safety. It also discussed applications to nutrition, such as the design of nutrient delivery systems, nano-encapsulation of bioactive food components and nano-sensors to detect spoilage or infection.