Encapsulation of food ingredients by nanophytosomes

Phytoactive compounds are becoming a more interesting area in prophylactic studies due to their health promoting capabilities. Polyphenols (i.e., flavonoids, anthocyanins, etc.), a major group of phytoactive constituents, are considered as food ingredients which can be found naturally in almost all fruits, vegetables, and nuts. They could provide many nutritional values beside therapeutic and preservative activities. Therefore, the idea of their application in foods for designing new functional foods for specific health reasons can be a new horizon in food science. However, several issues are associated with direct use of phytoactive substances in food products such as their hydro/lipophilicity properties, chemical instabilities once extracted from parent sources, and bitter taste. Encapsulation of these health promoting compounds can be an ingenious method for covering all these issues. Nanophytosome technology, which gets the benefit of phospholipids, is one of the newest lipid-based nanoplatforms that can be used for delivering botanical-based nutraceuticals to the food and pharmaceutical sciences. Although the nanophytosome technology has been developed for pharmaceutical applications, nowadays it is going to be used in food products as a new tool for designing novel medicinal-functional foods and beverages. The current chapter will cover physicochemical properties, potential applications, and technical analysis of nanophytosomes as new vehicles for encapsulation of food-based bioactive ingredients.