Phytochemicals from Marine and Terrestrial Foods - Properties and Potential Health Benefits

BACKGROUND: The exponential increase in the world’s population (estimated to reach 9.8 billion by 2050, about 34% higher than today’s, according to UN estimates), combined with continuous climate change and the consequent decrease in agricultural areas due to desertification, added to the global crisis caused by COVID-19, is leading to societal and global concerns regarding the food sector. Together, these factors are already increasing food prices, hampering the access to healthy diets of several million people worldwide. This is particularly affecting the poorest populations in the world, who are forced to choose cheaper and less nutritious foods. Therefore, it has become almost impossible to achieve healthy diets, based on fruits, vegetables and dairy products, critical for ensuring food nutrition and security.

Based on current global trends in diet and population, 60% more food will be needed in 2050 than currently. This raises very important questions, one of the most relevant and urgent being where we are going to find food for everyone. It is imperative that we produce more and better food with less waste, and implement sustainable food production systems through the optimization of food processes in order to reduce environmental footprints, lower production costs and improve quality and nutritional value.

These societal challenges will increase the exploitation of natural food bioresources, high-value-added compounds of terrestrial and marine origin, as powerful sources of bioactive substances that exhibit a wide range of biological properties—antioxidant, antibacterial, and antitumour, among others—affording them a wide range of potential applications in both the biotechnological (e.g., food preservation, shelf life, packaging, and quality and safety issues) and medical fields, related to health benefits through the prevention of chronic diseases such as cancer, and cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases.

Insights into micro- and nanoencapsulation techniques for the improvement of the efficiency of bioactive compounds, and the opportunities and research trends in several fields will be considered.   

AIMS and SCOPE: This Special Issue invites researchers to share their work in the form of primary research articles or literature reviews. The objective is to propose new and innovative approaches, including biotechnological and medical applications involving bioactive molecules from terrestrial and marine sources, such as the following:

• Phytochemicals from marine foods: 
• The impact on the food industry (shelf life, food quality and safety, and packaging);
• The impact on disease prevention.
• Phytochemicals from terrestrial foods:
• The impact on the food industry (shelf life, food quality and safety, and packaging);
• The impact on disease prevention.
• The development of new solutions for food preservation based on bioactive molecules.
• Micro- and nanoencapsulation techniques for the improvement of the efficiency of bioactive molecules.

We are soliciting articles presenting recent developments on bioactive compounds from terrestrial (fruits, vegetables, spices, and beverages, among others) and marine (alga, microalga, and fish) food bioresources and their potential applications in the food industry. These may include the design of new foods with high nutritional impact, namely, with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity, and new formulations for the pharmaceutical industry effective in the prevention of chronic diseases, namely, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases and cancer, as well as for the cosmeceutical industry. Emerging and green technologies for the extraction of these bioactive compounds and different ways to increase their stability and bioavailability through different encapsulation procedures will be considered of utmost interest.

Prof. Dr. José Sousa Câmara
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• • Phytochemicals
• • Marine source
• • Algae and microalgae
• • Terrestrial source
• • Fruits and vegetables
• • Spices and beverages
• • Bioactive compounds
• • Biological activities
• • Industrial applications
• • Functional foods
• • Chronic diseases
• • Disease prevention
• • Nutraceuticals
• • Micro- and nano-encapsulations
• • Sustainability.