A review on trend of marine sources for the development of functional foods

Abstract

Due to phenomenal diversity, marine food is known to be a treasure house for the production of a number of healthy food ingredients such as fish protein, fish oils, macro-algae, micro-algae and biologically significant marine seaweeds. In order to increase the availability and chemical divergence of marine functional food ingredients, a plethora of research has been conducted on marine resources for the discovery of biologically active value added marine food products using advanced biotechnological tools. It has been noticed that those unique marine microbes and their biologically active metabolites are potential sources to be used as sustainable food and pharmaceutical ingredients. However, recent advances in food technology have opened up a number of novel avenues to develop natural substances as food or food ingredients. In this context, this review aims at revealing and discussing prospective applications of marine sources and their metabolites in modern nutraceuticals and functional foods.