Nanoencapsulation strategies for improving nutritional functionality, safety and delivery of plant-based foods: Recent updates and future opportunities

Currently, food industries largely based on animal products including egg, meat, and fish are facing a burning challenge to meet the continuously increasing consumer demand. The greater availability of plant-based foods has aided the transition from animal foods to plant foods due to its sustainable, convenient, and affordable nature. Different plant derived ingredients like globular proteins, oligosaccharides, dietary fibres, starch, amylopectin, short and long chain unsaturated fatty acids are used to develop plant based foods, however, selection of most important ones being critical for creating a successful end product. Most notably, when the use of bioactive ingredients is targeted, some challenges like instability and reaction with other food matrices persist in development of plant based foods. In this context, nanoencapsulation of food components is an emerging and innovative field for controlled and targeted delivery with various prophylactic activities. The technology encompassing nanoencapsulation facilitates the release of food components, improvement in bioaccessibility, and digestion in the human body. Moreover, the plant-based foods are gaining cumulative attention in the scientific community due to development of various analogues of meat, egg, and milk. This review describes the recent updates in scientific understanding of plant based foods highlighting their prophylactic measures, market demand, and plant based ingredients with physical, functional, and molecular properties, and encapsulation strategies for elimination of various hurdles, maintenance of food quality, and insurances of safety as well as bioavailability of beneficial nutrients.