Siew Young Quek
The University of Auckland, New Zealand
Title: Microencapsulation of bioactives for functional food development
Biography
Biography: Siew Young Quek
Abstract
The increasing pressure on the food industry to produce healthy food products has, as a result, unveiled the challenge of processing functional ingredients in a way that meets the requirements of the modern day consumer. The major issues limiting the use of functional ingredients without prior processing include vulnerability to oxidative breakdown, limited water or lipid solubility, poor thermal stability and poor taste. Unprocessed, these ingredients such as bioactive compounds are essentially unsuitable for use as food ingredients due to any of the aforementioned reasons. This leads to the application of microencapsulation technology as one of the methods in production of food ingredients for functional food application. By utilizing microencapsulation technology, it is possible to produce functional ingredients with desirable chemical and physical properties. This paper aims to provide an understanding on the application of microencapsulation processes to produce functional ingredients for foods. Microencapsulation of lipophilic bioactive components (LBCs) and the development in the area will be discussed.