Bioactive Compounds in Plant-Based Food and Food Supplements

Dear Colleagues,

Plant-based foods are an important part of the human diet worldwide and a valuable source of natural biologically active compounds. Their availability in a fresh form during the year is limited, and due to their seasonality, processing becomes a key factor for maintaining the availability of these health-promoting components for daily consumption. Currently, in line with the newest trends connected with food waste reduction, the processing of industrial by-products, side streams, or wastes is also of high importance for the re-circulation of natural bioactive constituents, among other things. Furthermore, their conversion into novel types of food sustainably meets consumer demands by achieving a sustainable food chain. At present, traditional plant-based foods, especially produced from local products, are gaining attention from consumers and scientists due to the latest trends linked to the re-use of natural resources from the surrounding environment. The knowledge about their chemical composition, including the presence and quantity of bioactives that is linked to their biological activity, allow for the design of new food products with improved functional properties. In most cases, different processing techniques and parameters are applied, altering the composition of plant-based merchandise. This is connected with the modification of their structure and physico-chemical properties that may significantly moderate the biological effects of final products. The recognition of this effect of natural-based molecules present in complex food matrices being subjected to process-induced changes requires knowledge from different scientific disciplines. Due to the numerous possible interactions of individual bioactives between themselves, and between the bioactives and the constituents of complex food matrices, the evaluation of their process-moderated functions is crucial for the evaluation of their influence on health and disease, in model systems as well as complex foods. Furthermore, the effects of the composition of these processed products on digestibility has yet to be fully discovered. 

In the present Special Issue, we welcome original articles and narrative or systematic reviews on the impact of food matrix, food processing, and human digestion on the structure and function of the bioactive compounds composing plant-based foods products including botanicals, raw foods, processed foods, functional foods, food supplements, food-based powders, plant by-products, and medicinal plants.

Dr. Dolores Del Castillo
Dr. Anna Michalska-Ciechanowska
Guest Editors

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