Current status and future prospects of bioactive molecules delivered through sustainable encapsulation techniques for food fortification

In a world of growing population and climate changing, health and sustainable food production are nowadays considered the most pressing challenges. Foods enriched with bioactive compounds provide numerous health benefits to consumers. For instance, essential oils and extracts prepared from several natural edible resources including herbs, spices, fruits, seeds, flowers and medicinal plants are selected to obtain bioactive compounds. These ingredients have been selected based on their active components providing antioxidant activity, antiinflammation activity, aroma, and various other health-promoting attributes. Although having applications in foods and nutraceuticals, certain bioactive compounds are found susceptible to oxidative degradation, while some are known to be chemically unstable, which results in minimizing their health-promoting effects. Similarly, the instability of bioactive compounds during several stages of food manufacturing and storage, in conjunction with poor bioavailability, fast release, low solubility, and chemical instability when exposed to different conditions in the gastrointestinal tract, significantly compromise their anticipated benefits. Therefore, effective vehicles and sustainable techniques are essential for the delivery of bioactive compounds in foods to retain requisite benefits. The encapsulation process is one of the most popular techniques applied for the protection and controlled release of bioactive compounds, as well as for masking undesirable odours and bitter tastes of certain food ingredients. This review gives insight into studies published on bioactive preparations and the techniques of encapsulation for their integration to obtain enhanced and sustainable health-promoting food products. The benefits achieved include the protection of bioactive compounds against adverse environmental conditions, improvement of their physicochemical functionalities, stability during processing and storage, and enhanced bioavailability, providing health-promoting and anti-disease activities to the consumers. In a world of growing population and changing climate, health and sustainable food production are nowadays considered the most pressing challenges.