Abstract:
In new food product development, one of the major challenges is to enable the preservation of the designed food properties throughout its shelf life. During the shelf life, food ingredients undergo different deteriorative changes thus affecting their chemical, sensory and nutritional properties (e.g. texture, appearance, flavor, nutritional value, beneficial health effects). Different strategies have been applied to food products
to stabilize food ingredients and improve the oxidative stability, such as: the use of
chemical additives, antioxidants, and utilization of encapsulation/microencapsulation
techniques. However, in recent years the change of consumer needs and expectations
from food industry have dramatically changed, requiring more natural, less processed
and “free from” ingredients food. Therefore, the importance of natural deep eutectic
solvents (NADES) made of natural primary metabolites is rising especially in the food
sector. However, studies presenting the stabilization ability of NADES are still scarce.
This chapter overviews the unique physicochemical properties of NADES accountable
for stabilization of solutes and their application related to stabilization of food and its
components.