Food Function and Health Benefits of Functional Foods

Abstract

Nowadays, food consumers are becoming more health-conscious and shifting towards nutritious, wholesome and healthy foods, thus making manufacturers emphasize the development of functional foods. The shift from a former emphasis on survival through hunger towards functional food with nutraceutical and functional properties forced the food industry to understand functional bioactive compounds in different processed food products along with their functional and phytochemical qualities in food for humans. Functional foods are defined as foods that are containing one or more functional components/ingredients like antioxidants, carotenoids, prebiotic, probiotic, polyphenols, sterols, and/or any other components with some functional properties and provides important or limited functions in the or