Plant and Marine-based Biopolymers for Efficient Nutrient Delivery

Abstract

Nutrients form an essential part of our daily diet. It is necessary that the essential nutrients enter our body in the right amount in order to maintain a healthy state of body functioning. However, sometimes these nutrients fail to get absorbed by our body in the right amounts owing to their early degradation in the gastric and intestinal environment. Therefore, a concept of nutrient delivery has emerged to enable the delivery of these nutrients maintaining their bioavailability without affecting their bioactivity. Plants and marine sources are exploited in the search of bio-polymers that are biocompatible and serve as efficient vehicles for nutrient delivery. Each bio-polymer from plant or marine sources has different chemical constitutions that allows it to deliver hydrophilic and hydrophobic nutraceuticals accordingly. The extraction of these bio-polymers is tedious and hence little has been explored with respect to their application in food science and technology. This chapter throws light on the different plant and marine-based biopolymers that have shown potential application in nutrient delivery. The scope of using nanotechnology in nutrient delivery through various techniques has also been covered in this chapter.