Food fortification and modification
Nanotechnology will be used to transform or manufacture food from the atom up by designing and shaping molecules and atoms. Food can be fortified with nano-encapsulated nutrients, its appearance and taste can be boosted by nano-developed colors, fat and sugar content can be removed or disabled by nano-modification, and ‘mouth feel’ can be improved. Companies are designing ‘smart’ foods that will interact with consumers to ‘personalize’ food, changing color, flavor or nutrients on demand. Food ‘fortification’ means increasing the nutritional value in a processed food, for example the inclusion of ‘medically beneficial’ nano-capsules can enable chocolate chip cookies or hot chips to be marketed as health promoting or heart cleansing food item. Color, flavor, concentration and texture of the individual’s choice can be trigger released using domestic microwave oven. Nanotechnology can also change junk foods like ice cream and chocolate and modify to reduce the amount of fats and sugars that the body can absorb suitably either by replacing some of the fats and sugars with other substances, or by using nanoparticles to prevent the body from digesting or absorbing these components of the food. Vitamin and fiber-fortified fat and sugar-blocked junk food are also to be developed as health promoting and weight reducing food. Clear, tasteless drink that contains hundreds of flavors in latent nanocapsules can be developed using nanotechnology and ‘Smart’ foods can also be developed to sense when an individual is allergic to a food’s ingredients, and block the offending ingredient.
Food Packaging
Nanocomposites can be used to act as a barrier to the entry of gases such as oxygen or carbon dioxide, restrict the entry of both liquid and vapor phase chemicals and to the migration of odor and at the same time impede absorption of flavors and vitamins by the plastic packaging material itself. This barrier behavior of nanocomposites keeps products without decay and increases shelf life. Nanocomposite packaging material reduces weight of packages and thus package cost. The enhancement of shelf life and lower package cost dominate the uses of nanotechnology in food packaging.