Nano-encapsulated food ingredients and additives/supplements provide protective barriers, taste and aroma concealment, sustained discharge, and enhanced dispensability for water-insoluble food components and supplements/additives. Nanocapsules can be introduced to foodstuffs to provide nutrients.

How Are Nanoparticles Used in Food Production?

With regard to food safety, nanotechnology is utilized to detect pathogens and toxins in food products and to strengthen barrier properties. Additionally, nanotechnology is widely used in food packaging as an antimicrobial and to produce intelligent packaging.

What is The Role of Nanotechnology in Food Packaging?

Improved food packaging is designed by adding nanoparticles to enhance mechanical and physical properties such as durability, strength, flexibility, biodegradability, thermal resistivity, UV absorptivity, water vapor, and oxygen impermeability.

Types of Nanoparticles in Foods

In general, the nanoparticles present in foods can be conveniently categorized according to their composition, either organic or inorganic, since this factor has a significant impact on their gastrointestinal fate and potential toxicity.

Inorganic nanoparticles

Many types of nanoparticles used in foods are mainly composed of inorganic materials, such as silver, iron oxide, titanium dioxide, silicon dioxide, or zinc oxide. These particles are either crystalline or amorphous solids at ambient temperature, which may be spherical or non-spherical. They have different surface characteristics and come in different sizes depending on the initial materials and preparation conditions used in their fabrication. Inorganic nanoparticles also vary in their tendency to dissolve under different solution conditions (such as pH and ionic strength) and in their chemical reactivities, which have a significant impact on their GIT fate and toxicity.

Conclusions

There is considerable interest in utilizing both organic and inorganic nanoparticles within foods because of their potential for improving food quality, safety, or nutritional attributes. However, the small size of nanoparticles means that they may behave differently within the human body than the larger particles or bulk materials conventionally utilized as food ingredients. As a result, there is a need to understand the GIT fate of ingested nanoparticles better and to characterize their potential toxicity. At present, there is a relatively poor understanding of the GIT fate and toxicity of most types of food-grade nanoparticles, and it is not possible to make a single general recommendation about the safety of all nanoparticle types. Instead, the safety of nanoparticles should be judged on a case-by-case basis depending on the nature of the nanoparticles, as well as the properties of the food matrix they are dispersed within.

Source: Department of Food Science, University of Massachusetts, Amhe