Nutrition, Food Science and Technology

When human beings were living in jungles, they used to hunt for food from place to place. This habbit has developed, inquisitiveness towards the testing of new foods from the nature. After the knowledge about the use of fire, things have changed drastically and many recipes were developed by him/her which were not only simple foods but were medicinal foods. India is a land of many cultures and hence it is also the land of many medicinal foods. These foods are mostly nothing but unprocessed nutraceuticals. Nutraceuticals are any whole food-not an isolated nutrient or vitamin-that is concentrated and repackaged in non-food format like a capsule. A good example is garlic capsules, spinach or beets. When ingested, each of these are concentrated, whole botanicals has shown promise in promoting health and preventing disease. The term nutraceutical is being commonly used in marketing but very few countries have regulatory definition. Dr Stephen, De Felice coined the term Nutraceutical from Nutrition and Pharmaceutical in 1989. Functional foods are defined as products that resemble traditional foods but possess demonstrated physiological benefits. However, nutraceuticals are commodities derived from foods but are used in the medicinal form of pills, capsules or liquids and again render demonstrated physiological benefits. Global nutraceuticals market is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 6.5%. The Digital Media and Marketing Association estimate that the Indian nutraceuticals market is likely to grow by 16% CAGR over the next five years.