Wild plants, mushrooms and nuts: functional food properties and applications

The use of healthy ingredients is a natural way of preventing diseases and contributes to the increased use of natural matrices. This book focuses on the nutritional, chemical, and biological properties of natural matrices from the Iberian peninsula, mainly food products such as wild plants, mushrooms, chestnuts, and almond. Society’s attitude to food, as a natural and inevitable necessity, has altered in line with changes in social conditions and development of technology. Current consumers are interested in the composition, properties, safety, and health effects of food products. The desire to consume foods with high biological value from natural origins poses a huge challenge for modern food science and industry. In addition, the recent consumer interest in chemopreventive nutrition has increased the choice of food products (functional foods) with specific components (bioactive compounds). The current increase in the adoption of more active and healthy lifestyles needs to be followed by a concomitant response from all players in the food chain. The knowledge contained in this book will allow scientists and, in the longer term, lay members of society to gain a better understanding of the value that these products exhibit, focusing on their nutritional and chemical composition, bioactivity, and potential as functional foods. Ongoing research on selected products will lead to a new generation of foods, and will promote their nutritional and medicinal use. Public health authorities consider prevention and treatment with nutraceuticals a powerful instrument in maintaining and promoting health, longevity, and life quality. The beneficial effects of nutraceuticals will undoubtedly have an impact on nutritional therapy; they also represent a growing segment of today’s food industry. Therefore wild plants, mushrooms, and nuts have become interesting food products due to the increasing interest in the concept of “functional foods” with “health benefits.” Wild Plants, Mushrooms and Nuts: Functional Food Properties and Applications is a compendium of current and novel research on the chemistry, biochemistry, nutritional and pharmaceutical value of traditional food products, which are becoming more relevant in our current diet, for developing novel health foods and in modern natural food therapies. Topics covered range from their nutritional value, chemical and biochemical characterization, to their multifunctional applications as food with beneficial effects on health, through their biological and pharmacological properties (antioxidant, antibacterial, antifungal, and antitumor capacity, among others).