Functional Cereals and Cereal Foods: Properties, Functionality and Applications

In recent years, consumers are concentrating more on the health benefits of food in order to preserve a healthy lifestyle and therefore becoming more aware of the relationship between diet and disease. This has resulted in a gradual shift from animal-derived to plant-based meals. Functional foods have turned into one of the rapidly expanding areas of the food industry due to the increasing awareness of consumers working to prevent lethal diseases like cancer, diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular disease. Functional foods are seen as the food or food components that manifest efficiency in protecting from diseases and attaining a healthier lifestyle by administering additional benefits on human physiology and metabolic functions apart from basic nutritional requirements of the body.

Cereals hold a prominent place in this new market. Cereals and cereal foods are important energy sources and many phytochemicals such as dietary fiber, resistant starch, vitamins, minerals, lignans, phytic acid and phenolic compounds that provide a variety of health benefits. Eating functional cereal foods is an easy method to increase nutrients associated with whole grains without changing eating habits.