Introduction to the Technology, Applications, Products, Markets, R&D, and Perspectives of Nanofoods in the Food Industry

摘要

Nano is a unit that designates a billionth; accordingly nanotechnology could be described as the study and applications of the unique characteristics and phenomena of nanometer size materials. Applications of nanotechnology fall into two categories (one is top-down and the other is bottom-up). Currently, most products are the results of the top-down approach. Nanofoods have distinct functional characteristics stemming from the size, mass, chemical combinations, electrolytic features, magnetic properties of food sources at the nano level and which can be applied for safe absorption and delivery into the body. The greatest advantage of nanofood is that it permits the efficient use of small quantities of nutritional elements by increasing digestive absorption ability and by delivering natural elements without any change in their original characteristics. On the other hand, there are still unsolved problems, such as questions about safety and introduction of harmful material. The demand for new commercial food products is increasing, and commercial food producers are gradually combining nanotechnology and traditional food preparation methods. Nanofoods will improve our eating habits remarkably in the future. Tomorrow we will design nanofoods by shaping molecules and atoms. It will have a big impact on the food and food-processing industries. The future belongs to new products and new processes with the goals of customizing and personalizing consumer products. Nanotechnology is expected to be appliedto not only foods themselves, but also to food packaging, production, safety, processing and storage. Also, it is believed that nanotechnology will be applied tracking finished products back to production facilities and even to specific processing equipment in those facilities. The aim of this study is the introduction of technology, applications, products, markets, R&D, and perspectives of nanofoods in the food industry.