Challenges in discovering bioactives for the food industry.
Nutritional interventions are associated with transient deviations of homeostasis within the human body. The role of a balanced nutrition is, firstly, to ensure an adequate intake of nutrients to efficiently enable all metabolic processes and, secondly, to contribute to sustained human health. This is a new challenge for the food industry because consumers demand taste and convenience in addition to healthy food. The attempts of the food industry to omit health-adverse compounds, and incorporate constituents with identified beneficial health effects has coined the term 'functional food', encompassing fresh or processed food with health-promoting and/or disease-preventing properties. The active ingredients of these products are known as 'nutraceuticals'. This paper outlines scientific concepts applied to the identification of novel bioactive food ingredients.
Schwager
Joseph
J
Department of Human Nutrition and Health, DSM Nutritional Products, P.O. Box 3255, 4002 Basel, Switzerland. Joseph.Schwager@dsm.com
Mohajeri
M Hasan
MH
Fowler
Ann
A
Weber
Peter
P
D019587:Dietary Supplements / Q000032:analysis*; D019649:Food Industry / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D006801:Humans; D007881:Legislation, Food; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009747:Nutritional Physiological Phenomena